Learning the Fox Trot: In Pursuit of the Bushy-Tailed Red Fox in Spiti Valley

I was perched on a ledge, on the outskirts of Kee village in Himachal Pradesh, watching the waters of the Spiti River glisten in the moonlight. A surreal calm pervaded the valley, broken occasionally by the howling, bone-shivering wind. All was serene, until a dog’s bark resounded through the night. A flash later, I saw something scampering in the snowy bushes a few yards away.

A shadow appeared. The barks drew nearer. I turned on my flashlight and pointed towards the bushes, and staring straight at me, was a red fox. It was there one moment and gone the next, running for its life, towards the river, with a pack of dogs chasing behind. I followed its thick, bushy tail, with its signature white patch at the tip, and watched as it finally disappeared into the mist over the frozen riverbed.

That was back in 2011, when I was carrying out my MSc dissertation project on red fox ecology in the Spiti Valley. The red fox is a widespread species, distributed across most of the Northern Hemisphere and parts of Southern Hemisphere. Their commonness is largely driven by the species’ “generalist omnivorous diet,” meaning they can survive on fruits, berries, and small herbivores, as well as scavenge on carrion and garbage.

The Trans-Himalaya is a prime habitat of red fox in India. This region is arid, being in the rain shadow of the Greater Himalayan Range, with a growing season that is just about two months long, during July and August. The cold is a constant presence in these parts, but it is near deadly in winter. While I worked there in February-March 2011, minimum temperatures dipped to minus 36 degree Celsius, and the landscape was covered under thick snow.

Despite these seemingly inhospitable conditions, villages are expanding. Some have even become towns with thriving populations and garbage dumps, frequented by packs of free-ranging dogs. The greater the human subsidies, the higher the density of dogs.

Herein lies the fox’s conundrum. They rely on human subsidies, such as garbage and livestock carcasses dumped on the outskirts of villages and towns. Especially in the harsh winter months, when most of the landscape is covered under snow. But the increase in human presence has also brought free-ranging stray dogs, that rely on similar resources. How do the foxes and dogs interact with each other? Can they share the resources, abundant as it may be? And if not, who gets outcompeted?

It is in pursuit of these answers that I surveyed ten villages and towns in the Spiti Valley, ranging in size from three to 250 houses. Field surveys were implemented to estimate the intensity of habitat use by the red fox, the availability of human subsidies, and the density of dogs. With a group of enthusiastic field assistants from Kibber and Tashigang villages, I spent three months looking for foxes and their tracks and scat, sometimes knee-deep (and occasionally waist-deep) in snow.

On one such February evening, we were surveying Kibber village, 4,200 m in altitude, when we came across a pack of four dogs. They were feeding on a domesticated sheep carcass on the southwestern edge of the village, near a seasonal nala (rivulet) that is the main source of water for the village. Frustrated yet again, to see more dogs than foxes during our surveys, I scanned the surrounding area with binoculars. This time, I spotted a red fox, perfectly camouflaged on a rock about 300 m from the dogs. Then another fox came to view, near the first one. And yet another, a little farther. All three were unmoving, appeared almost petrified.

The dogs continued to feed for over half an hour, taking their time with the carcass, ensuring they got even the little bits of flesh attached to the bone. The foxes, meanwhile, remained immobile, finally approaching the kill after the dogs had left the carcass, nearly fully eaten.

One fox, seemingly the most experienced, took the first steps towards the carcass. It approached with extreme caution, while the other two raised their bodies on alert, ears erect, and tails stiffened. Every time a dog would bark, even far away, the fellow would freeze for a few seconds and look around in a half-crouched posture. Then, it would take a few more steps, using stunted bushes and rocky outcrops as cover.

When it was about 15-20 metres from the carcass, the fox finally stretched its neck, and took a good, long look at the surroundings. Convinced that there was no imminent danger, it happily trotted the last few metres to the carcass and started voraciously feeding on what was left.

Soon, the other two foxes joined in, which led to a little competition between them, but a short while later, the trio was feeding together. There were no dogs in the vicinity. Only barks from a distant pack reverberated eerily across the snow-covered landscape. In about five minutes, the foxes were licking and biting the almost meatless bones. In another five, they were licking their own jaws and paws. Then they left, and I couldn’t help but feel that they must still be hungry.

My dissertation showed that human subsidies increased linearly as the size of villages/towns grew. This in turn led to an increase in the density of dogs, but the same is not true for foxes. Our research showed that habitat use by foxes increased initially, and then showed a sharp decline. More specifically, it showed that when a settlement grows larger than 90 houses, the advantages of human subsidies to red foxes is outweighed by the density of dogs. So even though a town has a higher availability of human subsidies, aka resources, it showed lower use by red foxes.

Recognising the consequences of larger dog populations is crucial, especially considering the pace at which villages and towns in the Himalayas are growing. We need better garbage management, to curtail the threats posed by rapidly increasing free-ranging stray dog populations, to wildlife, but also to human health, through diseases like rabies. In such a scenario, can we really assume that red fox will continue to be common?