Urban red foxes are highly adaptable wildlife coexisting with millions of people, and their welfare is shaped by human attitudes and interactions that range from beneficial to harmful.
Urban fox welfare involves the intersection of wild animal needs and human urban environments. Foxes that colonize cities access reliable food sources and shelter but face new hazards including road traffic, rodenticide poisoning, snares, and disease. Mange — transmitted between foxes — causes chronic, severe welfare harm through intense itching and hair loss leading to hypothermia. Treatment is available through wildlife rehabilitation networks. Understanding that urban foxes are wild animals adapted to urban life rather than domestic animals or pests leads to more welfare-positive human responses: neither intensive feeding that creates unhealthy dependency nor lethal control that is ineffective.