FOX TRAPPING
Foxes may cause serious problems for poultry producers. Losses may be heavy in small farm flocks of chickens, ducks, and geese. Damage can be difficult to detect because the prey is usually carried from the kill site to a den site, or uneaten parts are buried.
Pheasants, waterfowl, other game birds, and small game mammals are also preyed upon by foxes. At times, fox predation may be a significant mortality factor for upland and wetland birds, including some endangered species.
Here is a prime example of how predators like red fox effect pheasant populations. Predation accounted for 80.8 percent of all classified deaths among a radio-tagged sample of 244 ring-necked pheasant hens on the Waterlow Wildlife Area in Wisconsin. More than 60 percent of the losses due to predation were attributed to mammalian predators. The red fox was implicated in 80% of these deaths.
Trapping is a very effective and selective control method. A great deal of expertise is required to effectively trap foxes. Trapping by inexperienced people may serve to educate foxes, making them very difficult to catch, even by experienced trappers. Trapping for foxes should take place in the fall and winter.
