Urban foxes are a successful wildlife adaptation to human environments but face significant welfare challenges from persecution, disease, and road traffic. Managing human-fox conflict humanely is possible.
Urban fox welfare occupies a contested space between those who welcome foxes as wildlife and those who experience them as pests. The welfare evidence is clear: foxes suffer from mange, road traffic injuries, and persecution; lethal control is ineffective for population management; and coexistence management through securing food waste and not feeding foxes is more effective and welfare-positive than culling. The individual fox with mange slowly deteriorating is the most acute welfare concern, and community treatment programmes offer a compassionate response.