On a recent morning, Victoria Monette trekked through a forest behind a home on the Eastern Shore, searching for the perfect tree to mount a camera.
The ideal trunk would be sturdy, clear of vegetation, facing north or south and along a hiking or game trail.
Monette, a Virginia Tech doctoral student in wildlife conservation, settled on a red maple across from a stream. In the mud nearby was evidence of passing wildlife: raccoon and deer tracks.
She brushed off tenacious ticks, gathered her equipment and got to work installing a camera.
This motion-sensor device is one of hundreds Monette has set up across the Commonwealth as part of an ambitious undertaking to document gray foxes, which state officials suspect could be struggling.
“It's been over 20 years that they've had anecdotal evidence that gray foxes are declining,” Monette said. “But the nature of the decline is unknown. So it's not known if that is actual numbers and there's a lower population, or if they're just using the habitat differently.”
The Virginia Gray Fox Project, a collaboration between Virginia Tech and the state Department of Wildlife Resources, is gathering on-the-ground data to find out.
Gray foxes live throughout most of North America. They’re about the size of a house cat, slightly smaller than their red counterparts.
They have a mix of colors, including a white underbelly, ring of red around their head and a bushy, black-tipped tail.
Gray foxes can swim, climb trees and eat pretty much anything as opportunistic omnivores. Also, they like to play around.
“They just look like such playful little goofballs,” Monette said.
Gray foxes are harvested in Virginia, and sportspeople have reported finding fewer of them.
Hunters’ sightings dropped by 66% over the past two decades, according to the DWR. The number of gray fox pelts sold by Virginia trappers to fur dealers also went down by 97% in that time.
The state granted Virginia Tech just over $262,000 for the Gray Fox Project.
It’s “very important for us to have a better understanding of the population in Virginia,” Leah Card, DWR’s furbearer project leader, said in a statement.
Over the past two years, Monette’s small team put up more than 900 wildlife cameras across western and central Virginia, mostly on private land but also state and national wildlife areas.
This summer, they’re turning to the coast to add another 500 or so.
Monette said the goal is to determine the distribution – or geographic range – in Virginia. Additional research could dive further into the actual size of the population.
So far, only about 16% of the wildlife cameras have spotted gray foxes, including a playing pair and a tree climber. Almost half of the cameras found red foxes.
The latter species appears to be more comfortable around humans, making them more commonly spotted in people’s backyards or urban areas.
“Gray foxes are a bit more timid, it seems,” Monette said.
Other states have recently conducted similar studies to research their own gray fox declines, such as Illinois, Ohio and Indiana. Officials found culprits could include habitat loss, disease and competition with other predators, such as coyotes.
Monette plans to analyze her footage to assess factors that could be affecting gray foxes, such as competing species or urban sprawl. That could help officials decide how to protect the population.
“Virginia has a history of hunting and trapping and the fur trade,” she said. “Historically, that's just part of the culture here. So we don't want to lose that, but we also don't want to lose our wildlife.”
Last week, Monette and two students traversed the Eastern Shore to install the latest batch of cameras.
One location was the 2-acre property of Ed Augustine. He and his wife are Master Gardeners and learned about the Gray Fox Project through training with the state wildlife agency.
Augustine said he’s seen plenty of red foxes in the area – but only one gray, which was burrowed into a sand dune at the Savage Neck Dunes Natural Area Preserve.
“I startled her and she startled me, and she took off,” he said. “Beautiful animal.”
He’s hoping the project camera will pick up one of the elusive creatures. But he’d also be happy to see anything passing by, like raccoons or possums.
Documenting that other wildlife is just as crucial for the project, Monette said. She wants to learn more about where gray foxes are, but also where they aren’t.
“If the gray fox isn't there, it's still necessary information. But also, it's important to know what is there where the gray fox is absent.”
Previously installed cameras have captured all sorts of animals across Virginia: bobcats, black bears, turkeys, an elk, a groundhog, an armadillo and lots of deer.
Monette also plans to soon work with a few Virginia tribal nations to collect data on their lands and learn more from Indigenous knowledge of the region.
The fieldwork isn’t easy. It involves long days in harsh environments and weather.
After installing one camera on a recent trip to the Shore, Monette got on her hands and knees to crawl past the device, mimicking the movement of a fox.
“Gray foxes are low,” she said with a laugh. “So this is how we test to make sure it’s going to get it.”
In six to eight weeks, they’ll be back to take down the cameras, see what they found – and put them up elsewhere in eastern Virginia.
Landowners who want to participate in the Gray Fox Project can fill out this online form.
