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Meet Felix the Grey Fox
Felix is our shy, tree-climbing fox ambassador.
In our story, Felix was first spotted on a trail camera in Seven Pillars Nature Preserve, moving quietly along the Mississinewa River beneath the 25-foot limestone pillars that are sacred to the Miami people. Centuries of erosion carved those alcove-like rooms in the rock, creating both a cultural landmark and a natural corridor along the river.
From there, imagine Felix following connected forest patches, creek bottoms, and brushy edges all the way toward West Lafayette. His journey represents what we want for real gray foxes in Indiana: safe, continuous habitat that lets them move, hunt, and raise young without being cut off by roads and development.
Felix reminds us that even a small, secretive predator needs big-picture thinking about land, culture, and community.
Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) are one of Indiana’s most distinctive native carnivores. With grizzled gray fur, reddish legs, and a black-tipped tail, they’re also the only canid in North America that can climb trees.
They thrive in dense forests, brushy woodlands, and river corridors, habitats found at places like Seven Pillars Nature Preserve and along the Wabash River near West Lafayette. Their diet includes small mammals, birds, insects, fruits, nuts, and occasional carrion. Each spring, they raise 3–5 pups in hollow logs, rock crevices, or old burrows.
Once common across Indiana, gray foxes have declined in recent decades, and researchers are studying habitat loss, disease, and competition as possible causes.
About Grey Foxes
The Importance of the Grey Fox in Corridor Ecology and it's Environment
Gray foxes play an important ecological role. By hunting rodents and eating fruits, they help control prey populations and disperse seeds, supporting healthy forests and fields. As mid-sized predators, they keep ecosystems balanced from the middle of the food web.
They are also strong indicators of habitat quality and connectivity. Where gray foxes persist, landscapes still contain enough wooded cover and connected corridors for wildlife to move safely. Their decline often signals fragmentation, road barriers, or other environmental stressors.
Protecting forested corridors, creek bottoms, and brushy edges helps gray foxes survive, and benefits many other species that rely on the same connected habitats.
Where Gray Foxes Thrive in Indiana
Learn More About Seven Pillars Nature Preserve
A culturally significant landmark and wildlife haven along the Mississinewa River.
ACRES Land Trust page:
https://acreslandtrust.org/preserve/seven-pillars-nature-preserve-and-seven-pillars-of-the-mississinewa-landmark/
