Red foxes have become increasingly urban in many European and North American cities, and wildlife managers are developing coexistence approaches that protect fox welfare while managing human conflicts.
Urban fox welfare challenges include mange, road mortality, and occasional conflict with residents. Mange causes severe suffering — intense itching, skin crusting, hair loss, and immune compromise. Lethal population control causes welfare harm and fails to reduce populations. Mange treatment programs that provide medicated food to affected animals demonstrate a practical welfare intervention for urban wildlife. The coexistence approach — accepting fox presence while managing specific conflicts through exclusion and education — achieves better welfare outcomes than lethal control while being more effective at managing human-fox conflict.