https://news.uga.edu/southeastern-gray-foxes-struggling/

I sure hope the greys arent going away....

...another reason to kill EVERY coyote!

Its obvious that coyotes fill the red foxes' niche, but have always thought that greys were different enough to hold their own.

We have plenty here in NC, between what we trapped and roadkill we saw last year they are plentiful

Couldn't prove that by what I'm seeing, if anything its the reds that are declining. But then again I'm trapping in the building filled marginal areas the article mentions.

I have seen a big decrease in greys in past few years but have always noticed that there are fewer greys during wetter years and more during dry. I also know that distemper hits them hard and always attributed population variances to natural cycles.

You need to re introduce the wolf.
They will thin the coyotes,and are beneficial to smaller carnivores like foxes,as long as the wolves are managed to optimum population levels.
Wolves become destructive as opposed to beneficial when they become overpopulated.

We got red wolf's here in NC, they don't eat the coyotes as much as they breed them

They hurting here in Ohio, mainly because the populations have been so isolated from each other, inbreeding has caused some immune system issues,

Good number of Gray fox around me. If the gray fox weighed 30 pounds and was 3x its normal size this thread would be about declining coyote populations lol

True that, tuff little critters.

I 100% agree with this^^^

Seen videos of trappers taking a grey out of a trap and holding it in their arms like a puppy...without controlling the head. I have caught several hundred grey fox.....probably over a thousand, and have never seen one that I could cradle like that. They are vicious little turds.

have not seen gray around for 20 years ,but the last couple of years they are making a come back

About 100 to 0ne here and then usually a male.

Several years ago when the yotes moved in, they almost wiped both ojt.
We.don't kill any fox.now...unless it's over chickens.

Greys are about extinct in Kentucky. You see very few at fur sales.

Here in MS hardly no red fox, but seems to be ample grays.

One thing I wonder about from reading that study, coupled with a recent experience. It says that they're basing the decline on trapper reports. The past few weeks we'd been doing a fox control job. We just grabbed our coyote traps, which are mostly #2 Bridgers and a few MB550s. The Bridgers probably had 5 lbs of pan tension ( I don't know for sure) and the MBs are however they come.

The first 7 days we caught nothing and I found that odd. We set up a trail camera on a few sets. Video footage showed the fox (red and gray) were dancing on those traps. At one dirthole I had THREE traps set because the bait kept getting dug out. The fox dug it out again while standing on those 3 traps. The video was certainly eye opening! After that we loosened the pan tension to nothing on the #2 bridgers, and within 2 days caught a red and a gray fox from the sets in the video.

With the constant improvement in traps geared for coyote, and so much being written about increasing pan tension nowadays, I bet a person would be shocked how many fox are NOT getting caught while visiting sets. I know I'll be loosening ALL the tension on my traps before I set out a line this fall.

Alway's tightened up my pans to avoid alot of the fox and possum's. Trapping grey's need pan tension for a mink trap, lol. ALOT of toe caught yotes and bobcats doing that though!

Coons over populate, distemper breaks out, grey fox are wiped out! That's what is happening to them in the deep south.

I see a lot of red fox here in Ohio. Something, probably coyotes, killed and ate the red fox that were habituated to me on my farm. There were 3 that would come close to me, or that i could walk up on. One really old male red fox would come running and come within 6' of me when I would dump out bad eggs, that didn't hatch. I enjoy watching the fox pups that den on my one hillside. This year, there were none that I saw on my farm. Usually I can hear the red fox making terrible breeding sounds in late Winter for at least a couple of weeks. This year i didn't hear them here at all.




I usually only see a Grey fox once every few years.

I see and hear lots of coyotes, especially once the crops are harvested.

I saw my first 2 live bobcats this Spring, on the same day around 90 miles apart.

Keith

Yep^^^^

Sounds like we've identified two factors if the data is based off trapper catch reports.

Coyotes are worth more to the trapper whether that's for nuisance, live, or just to have property to trap. I would opine that a southern trapper not targeting coyotes is either a beaver trapper or not trapping.

Couple that with no fur market, see above, the coons are out of control. Definite distemper vector.

Add in habitat competition and who knows.

Seems like these biologists need to get out of their air conditioned offices and quit crunching numbers on the computer and do some old fashioned field work.

I thought this exact same thing when they mentioned trapper harvest reports.