Red foxes have successfully colonised urban environments across the UK but face welfare threats from persecution, road mortality, and mange that affect their quality of life.
Urban foxes face several welfare threats from their proximity to human environments. Mange causes intense suffering before death: affected foxes lose most of their fur, develop thickened skin, and progressively weaken and starve over weeks before dying. The suffering from severe mange is prolonged and intense. Road mortality causes traumatic death and injury. Despite their successful urban adaptation, foxes are sometimes persecuted using inhumane methods including snares that cause suffering through prolonged restraint and injury. The welfare of individual urban foxes can be directly improved by local residents providing mange treatment via medicated bait, driving carefully in areas with known fox populations, and refusing to use or accept inhumane control methods.