Alex Abbey’s security camera captured something moving through an alley behind his home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs a few weeks ago. When he watched the 2am footage the next day, he was surprised to see a red fox on the screen.
“It’s unusual. It’s the first time I have seen one in Potts Point,” he says.
“I was surprised, but I understand as well that foxes are very common in [cities such as] London.”
Sebastian, who has asked for his surname not to be used, was a little more scarred by his fox encounter, also in Sydney’s east.
“I was house-sitting in Vaucluse and forgot to close the chicken coop,” he says. Three chickens and two rabbits in his care didn’t survive the night.
“That was a fun call I had to make to the owner,” he says.
The abundance of pets provides plenty of prey for foxes, one reason cities have become ideal homes for this introduced species.
The monitoring website Fox Scan shows the heaviest concentrations of reports from the public over the past year were in Sydney and Melbourne. Figures from previous years weren’t available.
In Sydney, “very high” numbers were recorded in Bayview, Kellyville, Blakehurst, Greystanes and Warragamba. Dense clusters of sightings were recorded in Campbelltown, Collaroy, Cammeray and Roseville.
In Melbourne, high fox densities were reported in Birrarung Marr, Williamstown, Glen Waverley, Maribyrnong, Kew East and East Melbourne. “Very high” numbers were recorded in South Melbourne, Elwood, Camberwell and Bentleigh.
Victorian government research estimates there are 16 foxes per square kilometre in Melbourne – that’s about 5,000 foxes over an area with a 10km radius. A 2022 Australian National University study estimated that the national population was 1.7m.
But are fox numbers on the rise?
Users of flora and fauna app iNaturalist made 947 red fox observations across Australia in 2022, and 1,158 in 2023. But, like Fox Scan, those numbers aren’t a reliable indication of population size or growth.
Without a substantive monitoring system, experts can’t confirm whether the population is increasing, or if we are simply talking about and reporting foxes more often, perhaps because of social media.
“A lot of these observations are anecdotal,” Dr John Martin of Ecosure Consultancy says. “Funnily enough, my mother-in-law was talking about how much the foxes are sunning themselves in her garden at the moment, just yesterday.
“There is a seasonal component here,” Martin says. With mating season comes more movement – and more observations.
“We see younger foxes dispersing, and we are also seeing adult foxes being a bit more territorial, because it is heading into breeding season.”
But Prof Trish Fleming, a wildlife ecologist with Murdoch University, says the number of foxes spotted in cities is “definitely increasing” – and they aren’t just visiting.
“Foxes are really pretty jolly smart, and it could be that they are learning how to deal with living in an urban environment,” she says.
Tracking foxes in Perth, she has found they seem to avoid gardens where they may meet dogs, and are learning to “exploit the habitat better”. Consequently, control measures are failing over time.
“If you keep putting baits out, and a fox doesn’t take them, the next generation of foxes that are being born are also likely to have … an avoidance of particular threatening items,” Fleming says.
Foxes choose cities as habitats because they are “full of resources,” she says, from unfenced rubbish tips to street litter and open rubbish bins, and “those resources are not seasonal”. Plus, they feast in our gardens.
“There is a mulberry tree on my neighbour’s property, and I [see] purple black poos as the foxes are coming through,” she says. “They are definitely eating mulberries.”
Fleming’s research has found foxes frequent municipal buildings and land, such as golf courses. Dense thickets and reeds close to waterways are good for hunting and refuge. Foxes also dig under car bodies (and chew their cables), and under big structures and around greenery.
This introduced species is not only a nuisance for humans.
Martin’s research found that foxes in Sydney do not prey on threatened native species. But in the bush, they are probably the second worst predator after feral cats, eating native animals and driving some species towards extinction, he says. Mice, lizards, wallabies, kangaroos, turtles and birds are all at risk. Foxes also spread disease and weeds.
He says their interaction with native flora and fauna is complex. “But at its most simple, they are non-native species, so they’re actually having a negative impact on the environment.
“They’re a really gorgeous animal, and humans brought them here. They are absolutely doing what they have evolved to naturally do, which is to hunt animals. They’re a predator.”
With foxes now living on 80% of the Australian mainland, local councils are trying to control them. It’s a harder task in our cities, largely because baits, which are very effective for broad scale control, can poison pets.
Fumigation, trapping, detector dogs, thermal scopes (which detect heat from a live animal) and firearms are all used in management plans, says Gillian Basnett, the national feral cat and fox management coordinator with the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. Everyone can help solve the problem by throwing away less food and making sure that waste is safely secured, she says.
Recording the foxes you see can also help.
“It’s a fantastic experience to be able to see a fox like that,” Murdoch University’s Fleming says. “But they are terrible for our native fauna”.