By Nina Peacock
For the Star

Scientific name: Vulpes Vulpes

My husband’s eagle eyes spotted a red fox along Oilwell Road as we drove onto Elmendorf Air Force Base. Low to the ground, the fox crept close to the trees. I barely got a glimpse of his fiery red coat and puffy dark tail before he, and we, moved on.

“The fox population has increased in the Anchorage area,” said Rick Sinnott of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Though, “there aren’t very many in town.” Red foxes are more often found in wooded areas on Elmendorf and Fort Richardson, in dens scattered one or two miles apart. Foxes are territorial and will chase competitors away from their area.

Foxes are carnivorous and in suburban areas they can eat house cats.

Foxes also eat rodents, like mice and voles.

“You can think of foxes as mouse-control,” said Ute Olsson, chief naturalist at the Eagle River Nature Center.

Additionally, foxes are responsible for controlling the local Canadian geese population. Foxes eat goose eggs and young goslings. Geese were cited as the reason for the 1995 Boeing E-3B Awacs jet crash at Elmendorf. Before the fox population increased, the goose population was rising 15 percent per year. Sinnott said that the increase of foxes has probably decreased the danger of a bird strike on an airplane.

It is a fox’s passion for prey that has given it a reputation for being sly and cunning. The Dena’ina Natives across the Cook Inlet refer to them as q’anul’esha, meaning “one that sneaks about.”

Foxes are “very adaptable, and if persecuted, they become smart,” Sinnott said.

Many western folk tales tell of foxes out-smarting human fences around a chicken coop. Fox trappers must make sets completely free of human scent.

The Dena’ina in the upper Cook Inlet region, around Eklutna and Eagle River, refer to the fox as dasdeli, the same word they use for the color red.

Historically, their red coats made fashion statements. The ADF&G Web site says that in the 1920s, when fox fur was the cat’s meow, a pelt could sell for as much as $500. A 1925 auction, as reported by the New York Times, lists a red fox pelt top price at $42, which is about $512 after converting for inflation.

Today red fox pelt sales fluctuate from year to year, though they are much less lucrative than 90 years ago. U.S. Marketing Director Steve Gold of North American Fur Auctions reports that the average price for Alaska red fox this year is $20.71. It was $31.38 in 2008 and $26.61 in 2007.

Fox trapping is prohibited in an area designated as 14C by ADF&G, which comprises the Anchorage, Eagle River and Eklutna management area. In many other areas of Alaska, red fox open season stretches from September through February, and their bag limits are unlimited, as their populations are not endangered.

So, how to spot a red fox? Mostly likely you’ll get lucky and come across one while you’re out for a drive or walk, but you can also keep an eye out for fox tracks. Their relatively small paws make a straight line in mud or snow. The floor of the teaching yurt at the Eagle River Nature Center is painted with animal tracks scaled to size, including the fox’s.

Olsson says she has never seen a fox at the Nature Center, though she has seen them in the Interior. A curious fox poked his head out while she was in a remote area. They looked at each other - “we had this ah-ha moment,” she said - and after a brief stare he walked away.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, July 9, 2009.