Fox are quick to utilize artificial shelters for den sites. Areas under or around out-buildings, garden sheds, brush piles, drainage culverts and ornamental stone walls are ideal places for adult foxes to raise a family. Nearby homeowners are usually unaware of their resourceful neighbors until kits begin to spend time near the entrances to the den. Then the calls come in. Only if people try to feed, touch or catch a young fox will problems occur.
Tolerance is usually the best course of action.
Give the foxes the time and space they need to raise the kits until they are old enough to leave the den. If the den is in a problem location, take steps to make it unavailable once the family group has left. Remove the brush pile, block off the crawl space under the shed or put heavy mesh screening over the culvert where the foxes found shelter. Otherwise, enjoy the opportunity to watch these amazing animals with whom we share our fields and woodlots. The 1999 piping plover census period runs from May 29 through June 6 and will cover more than 120 different sites along the Massachusetts coastline.