RSPB Spotlight: Foxes

The Spotlight series introduces readers to the lives and behaviours of our favourite animals with eye-catching, colour photography and informative expert text.

Hero or villain? Few animals divide opinion like the Red Fox. This most successful of the world’s wild canids has lived alongside people from time immemorial. Celebrated by some for its resourcefulness and lush pelt, reviled by others for plundering chicken runs and overturning bins, it has worked its way deep into Western. Behind the folklore and tabloid headlines, however, lies a remarkable natural history success story.

In Spotlight: Foxes Mike Unwin explores how the Red Fox’s versatility has allowed it to thrive across the northern hemisphere, from desert and mountain to farmland and urban jungle. This informative book covers all aspects of the Red Fox biology and lifestyle, including hunting and catching food, defending a territory, raising a litter and communication strategies.

Finally, it examines the complex, often troubled relationship that the fox has both enjoyed and endured with humankind, and suggests what the future might hold.