San Juan Island Foxes. During a "grocery" trip to San Juan Island (yes, the silver salmon fishing was excellent as was the crabbing), I spent a off day exploring some of my favorite wildlife haunts. One was the rabbit meadow near South Beach at San Juan Island National Historical Park. For several acres to the west of Pickett’s Lane, introduced European rabbits have modified the landscape into tightly-cropped grasses punctuated by scattered burrows and mounds. While there are European rabbits elsewhere on the island, I don’t know of another large aggregation like this one.
In the presence of all that potential food, there are predators, especially bald eagles (though I did not see an eagle in four days) and introduced red foxes. Before Western colonization, there were no foxes (or European rabbits, and very few other mammals) on San Juan Island. The rabbits were raised for food on the island and either escaped or were released near the end of the 19th century.
When the hare populations exploded, introducing red foxes was one of several options that were implemented to control the rabbit numbers. These foxes came from fur farms and are not the same population genetics as the native red foxes on the mainland. And that explains the atypical color morphs among the island foxes.
For the last several years, at least one pair of foxes has had a den at the edge of the trees between the rabbit meadow and South Beach itself. The adult foxes hunt rabbits in the meadow and feed them to their kits. [Bald eagles have learned to steal the rabbits from the juveniles, leading to some famous pictures of a bald eagle with a rabbit in its talons and a fox holding onto its lunch.]
The foxes attract photographers – the “foxarazzi”. The park service’s rules keep visitors out of the field; visitors are supposed to keep 75’ buffer between themselves and the foxes. Generally, the grazing activity of the rabbits stops about 30’ from the fence that surrounds this meadow; outside the grazed area, the grasses are much taller, perhaps 18-24” tall. On this nice Saturday afternoon, two volunteers from the Park Service had set up a spotting scope to help visitors see foxes and answer questions (and ensure that the rules were followed).
This was an amazing day for viewing rabbits and foxes. [You can see the short grazed grasses around the rabbits and foxes in the center of the field of view and the ungrazed, taller grasses in the foreground and far background.]
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When I arrived, I could see many rabbits out of their burrows grazing on the short grasses, keeping watch, and chasing each other.
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View attachment 129144At that point, there were two foxes in view, a silver morph to the north edge of the meadow and a gold morph (dark tail) at the west edge. As I drove down toward South Beach, another gold morph individual trotted up from the trees heading north at the edge of the grazed grasses nor far from the fence. I quickly pulled over and managed some nice shots of the fox as it entered the taller grasses, as if on the hunt for mice / voles.
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It was heading toward the aggregation of watchers. So I quickly turned around at the South Beach parking lot, headed back up Pickett’s lane, and parked near the group. The fox settled down on a mound by a large rabbit warren as if waiting for a rabbit to emerge. It was only 100’ from the cluster of observers.
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Later, it yawned, revealing a nice set of sharp, pointed teeth.
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A short time later, a second silver morph appeared and trotted across the meadow toward us and the reclining gold morph (see the first picture). The rabbits were VERY wary of the passing fox.
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At that moment, there were four foxes in view across the meadow.
The silver morph looped around the gold morph and headed north again at the margin between the short cropped grass and the tall uncropped grass by the road / fence.
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It stopped to scent mark.
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It was heading up to the first silver morph at the northeast corner of the meadow. Its movements had been saltatory, but as it approached the second silver morph, it stayed low to the ground and headed straight for it. These two individuals began to fight with lots of teeth showing and vocalizations.
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I wasn’t sure if they were really going after each other or just sparring. The individual that I had been watching appeared to be the aggressor and the second silver morph soon displayed submissive postures and vocalizations. After the “fight” died down, this second fox made a beeline across the road to another field. If I had to speculate, I would say that the aggressor was the breeding male in the meadow and he was driving out a male offspring to encourage him to find his own territory.
Steve
At that point, there were two foxes in view, a silver morph to the north edge of the meadow and a gold morph (dark tail) at the west edge. As I drove down toward South Beach, another gold morph individual trotted up from the trees heading north at the edge of the grazed grasses nor far from the fence. I quickly pulled over and managed some nice shots of the fox as it entered the taller grasses, as if on the hunt for mice / voles.
