Welcome to the Lincoln Fox Project!
This iNaturalist project is part of a larger wildlife research project taking place through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources. Our research is focused on understanding the distribution, diets, and disease exposure of red foxes in urban and rural areas of Lancaster County, Nebraska. Red foxes can serve as sentinels of many diseases including zoonotic diseases, which are shared by animals and people. Investigating diseases in local red fox populations can provide important information on wildlife health and the presence of viruses, bacteria, and parasites in our urban and rural environments that could be transmitted to people or pets.
The numbers and diet of foxes in an area can influence their exposure to disease in the environment and through contact with other animals. Therefore, estimating red fox abundance in urban and rural areas is an important step in understanding disease distribution and transmission. Our project is focused on red foxes as sentinels, but we are also asking members to report sightings of coyotes and grey foxes. If you are unsure about what species you observed, please follow this link: https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/906985-Lincoln-Fox-Projects-Species-List?rank=species. When adding a new observation, please add a photo to your observation whenever possible, this makes it easy for us to confirm the species ID.
Citizen science projects are a relatively new method of estimating abundance of wildlife species. We intend to compare the results from this project with more traditional methods, including scat surveys and presence-absence surveys.
This iNaturalist journal will be updated periodically to keep members up to date on the project. Also, check out the following link for more information about zoonotic diseases and other One Health resources: http://nebraskaonehealth.unl.edu.
Comments
I live out in Contempo, off of 1st and Cornhusker and I've witnessed a Red Fox out here numerous times, early in the morning.
I have had a couple of citing of Rex Fox's in the Trendwood area. The first citing was a few weeks ago, can't remember which day but it was the last week of December. I was driving down Talbot Trail rd heading to A st. I had to stop because one Fox was crossing the street coming from a a yard to the East and crossing to Sycamore Dr. There was another fox waiting on the sidewalk on Sycamore Drive for his friend. Once the other got across the street they both ran down the side walk on Sycamore Dr (heading West). The Second citing was sometime last week I believe 1/9 or 1/10th. My husband was taking out trash at night and when he went to open the trash can a Fox came out running from the side of our neighbors house.
01/30/2019
Just sighted - @ mid-day - an adult red fox that has been seen twice before by our household & @ least twice by the next door neighbor in the last approximately three months.
Very healthy-looking adult, maybe 10-12 pounds, who was exploring in a calm, unhurried manner. Entered our back gate & made a couple of shallow circuits of the backyard., before moving toward the deadend of the alley.
Our sightings were daytime in a former alley that bisects the block, but ends in a double lot homesite w/ an overgrown backyard w/ many mature trees.
Our neighborhood is in old southeast section of town, north & west of the intersection of south 56th & South streets. Roberts Park is nearby & we are within walking distance of Holmes Lake.
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