Foxes caught fish in the wild for the first time, and the reason behind it is heartwarming

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) was stunned. Less than 30cm away from its paw, a carp was twisting its body wildly in the shallow water beside the reservoir. It was laying eggs. The red fox was stunned for less than two seconds, and suddenly it moved and dived into the water. When it looked up, there was a dying carp in its mouth.

In March 2016, two Spanish researchers observed a male red fox catching 10 carp in a few hours. They said this might be the first time a fox had been recorded catching fish in the wild, and the discovery made the red fox the third canid, in addition to gray wolves and dogs, to prey on fish.

Red foxes may be "fishing experts"

The red fox is a medium-sized omnivore that selectively preys on different prey based on the abundance of prey in the current area. Existing research has shown that the red fox preys on more than 300 species of animals and dozens of plants.
Their main prey are various small rodents, such as voles, hamsters, marmots, ground squirrels, etc. Secondly, they will also rob bird nests, hunt rabbits, and fight wits and courage with various reptiles. In rare cases, red foxes will also attack small young ungulates, but for animals weighing more than 3.5 kilograms, they will also weigh their own strength.

"Fish is not common in the diet of red foxes. We have been studying this species for many years, but we have never observed anything like this," said Jorge Tobajas, an ecologist who reviewed the paper. Although fish occasionally appeared in previous studies of the diet of red foxes, they were only in their stomachs, and the source of the fish was unknown.

Now, this observation directly proves the ability of this species to catch fish in its environment and confirms that fish are also fresh food that can be caught on the red fox menu, not just eaten as carrion. It is worth noting that the season when the researchers encountered red foxes fishing was during the spawning period of carp. These carp waiting to give birth gathered near the shallow water, and because they were distracted by reproduction, the red foxes had an opportunity to take advantage of them. This shows that red foxes may be opportunists. They will judge the difficulty of hunting prey at the first time and choose the one that is easiest to get. Carp spawning in shallow water is undoubtedly easy for red foxes to catch.

During the observation process, the researchers were surprised to find that the red foxes were very efficient at catching fish. In a limited time, the red foxes caught fish 10 times out of 12 attempts, with a success rate of 83%. This shows that the red foxes are very skilled in their "committing crimes", so the researchers speculated that this was not an isolated behavior of a single red fox, but that the entire group had developed this hunting behavior, and the reason behind this might be based on the "going into the water" experience accumulated by their predecessors.

Are foxes bloodthirsty?

As we all know, foxes are cunning and cautious by nature and rarely do anything overly "ostentatious", but it turns out that red foxes occasionally "overkill" their prey, and these ready-made delicacies can easily attract other carnivores, which does not seem to be in line with their character.

Some researchers believe this behavior is a potential "caching" behavior. After catching too much food, red foxes bury or hide the food, perhaps to have some leftovers in case they can't find the food later.

However, things do not seem to be that simple, and in some cases, apparent overhunting may be more consistent with optimal foraging theory.

Simply put, when one or more individuals kill a large amount of prey, they may not be able to eat all of it, but it will be shared and eaten by other individuals of the same population, or they will selectively consume the best parts of the food and discard the bad parts.

The good thing about this is that only one person in the group needs to work hard to hunt, and the other individuals can all benefit. From an energy perspective, the energy consumed by a single individual is exchanged for energy replenishment for the entire group.

In fact, female foxes and young foxes in the breeding season are the biggest beneficiaries of this theory. In the recorded red fox fishing incidents, the male red fox caught a total of ten fish, but it only ate a small part of it. Then a female fox dragged the hunted big carp into the grass, and the male fox did not interfere.

The researchers speculate that the food may have been provided for females and pups, as the local fish breeding season also happens to be the known breeding season for red foxes.

References:

https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3814