Story and photos by Justin Haag
At 3 to 7 pounds, the swift fox (Vulpes velox) is the smallest wild canine species in North America. It’s surely diminutive but stands tall as one of the most charming mammals residing in western Nebraska — a superb poster species to represent wildlife diversity of the often overlooked wide-open prairies of the High Plains.
The swift fox is about the size of a housecat, half as big as the much more common red fox. It also is distinguished from the red fox with a black-tipped tail instead of white and its proportionally bigger ears that help in listening for predators.
As the swift fox’s name indicates, its agile feet are among its best features for evading predators. Even though it’s much smaller than one of its nemeses, the coyote, its short legs can run at about the same speed — up to 40 mph.
The swift fox is an opportunistic omnivore who typically hunts at night, consuming a variety of rodents and other small mammals, insects, grasses and carrion. Most daytime sightings of swift foxes are when they’re sunning themselves at the entrance to their den with pups, sometimes called kits.
The swift fox prefers shortgrass prairies as areas it can see its surroundings and scan for danger. Unlike other canid species, it uses the cover of burrows year-round and not just during mating season. They are capable of digging dens but often take up residence in the vacant holes of badgers and prairie dogs, the latter of which is one of their favorite prey.
Swift foxes form monogamous pairs in the fall, and those relationships often last until death do them part. A female swift fox gives birth to two to six pups in spring, which both parents help raise until the young disperse in the fall. They are not considered to be territorial, and family ranges often overlap.
As the parents are teaching them to hunt and avoid
predators, the family may live in several different burrows and often move because of flea infestations. A swift fox may travel 4 to 9 miles each night in search of food.
Long ago, the swift fox’s range extended from Alberta to Texas and from Iowa to New Mexico and Montana. The decline in shortgrass prairie has not been kind to the population, however. It now lives on less than 44 percent of its original range.
Eradication efforts on prey, such as the prairie dog, and even other predators, also have put the swift fox in peril. Even though coyotes prey upon swift foxes, efforts to poison and trap that species have been linked to the unintentional killing of many of their smaller relatives.
As swift foxes frequently reside in burrows near roads, where coyotes avoid, the risk of becoming roadkill is high.
The swift fox is not listed as an endangered species on the federal level, but it is on Nebraska’s endangered species list. Once extirpated from Canada, the species has rebounded after reintroduction efforts there.
Sam Wilson, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission furbearer and carnivore program manager, said the agency has conducted surveys in the past and takes note of photos from the public, roadkill data and staff observations.
In 2016, Lucia Corral Hurtado published results of the state’s most comprehensive survey of swift fox distribution ever for the University of Nebraska. Using camera traps, she and her conservation partners conducted four surveys on 200 public and private sites within western Nebraska over two years. The cameras were placed on both private and public lands west of a line running roughly diagonal between Gordon and Beaver City.
“We found they are mostly present where we had been detecting them in the past through track surveys and opportunistic data collection — in the shortgrass prairies of the Panhandle and there may be a few in the southwestern portion of the state,” Wilson said. “Distribution looks somewhat stable over time.”
Wilson encourages the public to contact him or a nearby wildlife biologist if they see swift foxes.
To learn more about the swift fox and other wildlife, visit OutdoorNebraska.gov.