# Following Fox Trails

> In the snowy winter of 1934, Adolph Murie followed a pair of red foxes across a Michigan reserve, reading every pounce, chase and hidden rabbit in their tracks. He found the foxes caught more than they could eat and cached the rest, and that crows, owls, hawks and skunks often ate it instead. A classic of reading animal stories in the snow.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1936-murie-following-fox-trails/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Adolph Murie
- **Year published:** 1936
- **Journal or source:** Miscellaneous Publications, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, No. 32
- **Full citation:** Murie, A. 1936. Following fox trails. Miscellaneous Publications of the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, No. 32. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. 45 pp., 6 plates.
- **Access status:** Hosted (freely available elsewhere)
- **PDF:** https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/1936_Murie_following-fox-trails.pdf

## Tags

- **Species:** Birds > Crow; Mammals > Eastern cottontail; Birds > Great horned owl; Birds > Northern harrier; Mammals > Red fox; Mammals > Striped skunk; Mammals > White-tailed deer
- **Region:** North America > United States
- **Tracking:** Beds; Blood; Burrows; Caches; Feeding signs; Gaits; Hair; Kill sites; Scat; Snow tracks; Tracking; Tracks; Tracks and signs identification; Trailing; Urine
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Communication; Cub-rearing; Denning; Feeding; Food caching; Home range; Hunting; Predation; Scavenging
- **Methods and technology:** Descriptive statistics; Direct observation
- **Data type:** New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not reported
- **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology; Wildlife tracking
- **Year published:** 1936

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: red fox (Vulpes fulva), a pair and their litter of at least four young. Food and prey found in droppings or on the trails: eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus mearnsii), lemming-vole or southern bog lemming (Synaptomys cooperi), meadow mouse or meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), prairie deer-mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii), forest deer-mouse (Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis), muskrat (Ondatra zibethica), fox squirrel (Sciurus niger rufiventer), striped ground squirrel (Citellus tridecemlineatus), woodchuck (Marmota monax rufescens), house mouse (Mus musculus), jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius), prairie mole (Scalopus aquaticus machrinus), star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata), long-tailed shrew (Sorex cinereus), least shrew (Cryptotis parva), short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda talpoides), skunk (Mephitis nigra), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus borealis, as carrion), domestic sheep, house cat, chicken, ruffed grouse, bobwhite, painted turtle (Chrysemys), blue racer (Coluber), garter snake (Thamnophis), beetles (mainly June beetles, Phyllophaga), hickory nuts, acorns, corn, cherry, grape and sunflower seeds. Animals using fox caches: skunk, crows, marsh hawk, great horned owl (probably). Present but not studied or not found eaten: opossum (Didelphis virginiana), raccoon (Procyon lotor), long-tailed weasel (Mustela noveboracensis), mink (Mustela vison), badger (Taxidea taxus), chipmunk (Tamias striatus), red squirrel (Sciurus hudsonicus), flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans), pine vole (Microtus pinetorum), ring-necked pheasant, blue jay. Marten and coyote are mentioned from the western United States.
- **Location and habitat:** Edwin S. George Reserve, University of Michigan, five miles from Pinckney, Michigan, United States: 1,200 acres of rolling glaciated farmland country inside a game fence, with a small pond, a cassandra bog, two tamarack swamps, oak and hickory groves, sedge marshes, wet meadow to dry grassland, old fields and an orchard, surrounded by small farms. A comparison of marten droppings comes from Teton Park, Wyoming.
- **Topics:** snow tracking of red foxes; hunting behaviour; mouse pouncing; rabbit chases; food caching and returning to caches; surplus killing; use of fox caches by other animals; scent marking; diet from droppings (scat analysis) compared with kills found on the trail; diet at the den versus away from it; seasonal diet change (beetles in May and June); prey vulnerability and habitat; insectivores (shrews and moles) killed but seldom eaten; denning and moving the den; home range; economic and aesthetic value of the fox; identification of droppings and overlap with badger, opossum, coyote and skunk droppings.
- **Statistics or models:** Descriptive statistics only: counts of droppings containing each food item, and percentages for trail droppings, den droppings and the total, by month (Table I). Inconsistencies between text and Table I: (1) the text says 59 food items were found on the trails in one place and 60 in another (Table I sums to 60); (2) the text says five droppings held two meadow mice, the Table I heading says six; (3) the text says striped ground squirrel was in one trail dropping, Table I shows three; (4) the text gives two prairie deer-mice and 18 deer-mice identified only to genus in trail droppings, Table I shows three and 17 (both total 28).
- **Data type:** New field data: snow tracking and dropping collection from January to August 1934 (768 droppings: 535 from trails and 233 at the den, the den droppings collected from about 20 May to 6 June). Droppings were analysed by others: vertebrate remains by Harold Leraas, insects by L. W. Saylor.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Adolph Murie wanted to know what a pair of red foxes actually ate and how they hunted, by studying one place and a few animals closely over time rather than collecting stomachs from many places. He worked on the Edwin S. George Reserve in southern Michigan from January to August 1934.

He used two methods:

- Following fox trails in the snow. After each snowfall he followed the foxes’ tracks, reading what they had done: where they turned aside, pounced, chased rabbits, killed, ate, cached food, left scent and rested. He also returned to the caches later to see what happened to them.

- Collecting fox droppings. He gathered 768 droppings (535 along trails and 233 at the den) and had their contents identified, then compared the results with the kills he found on the trails.

He also found and watched the den, and noted the foxes’ range.

### 2. What they found

Hunting and caching (from the trails)

- He found 60 food items along the trails, plus 20 places where a fox had pounced in the grass, usually leaving no sign of whether it caught anything.

- 26 items had been cached: 12 rabbits, 1 muskrat, 4 lemming-voles, 2 meadow mice, 4 short-tailed shrews, 1 garter snake and 2 prairie deer-mice. Most food not needed straight away was cached, often just under the snow, apparently pushed in with the nose and covered while hardly breaking stride.

- The foxes killed more than they ate. On one night at least six rabbits were killed; on 1 April he knew of ten cached rabbits still untouched.

- To his knowledge the foxes returned to 16 food items, sometimes eating part of a rabbit, or galloping about with it in play before caching it again.

- Of 16 caches he watched, 9 vanished without sign of what took them. Seven caches and four uncached items fed other animals: crows, a marsh hawk, a skunk, and hawks or owls (probably great horned owls).

- Most rabbit chases he followed on the snow ended in a kill. Twice a rabbit was caught right at a hole it was trying to escape into.

- Of 21 shrews and moles found on the trails, only 4 (all short-tailed shrews) had been cached; most were left lying uneaten.

- The trails also showed scent marking at grass tufts, stakes and old bones, visits to many burrows, a fox stepping in a badger’s tracks for a quarter of a mile, and a fox chasing a weasel away from a freshly killed rabbit.

Diet (from the droppings, Table I)

- Cottontail rabbit was the main food: in 70.8% of trail droppings and 85.8% of den droppings.

- Lemming-voles (23.7% of trail droppings) and meadow mice (20.3%) came next. Both were much rarer in den droppings.

- Beetles, mainly June beetles, became a staple in May and June: in 23% of May droppings, 42% of June droppings and 64.8% of den droppings. Murie suggests the pups caught many beetles themselves.

- Birds were in 12.3% of trail droppings and 4.2% of den droppings, and were most frequent in March and least frequent in May and June, the nesting season.

- Shrews and moles, deer-mice, fox squirrels, woodchucks, muskrats (5.8% of all droppings), deer and sheep (both thought to be carrion), turtles, snakes, nuts, corn and fruit seeds made up the rest. No sign of harm to deer fawns or to farm poultry was found.

- Field observations and dropping analysis agreed well, for example on the importance of rabbits and mice and the low value of shrews.

Den and range

- The first den was found on 4 May. Around 25 May the family moved about 400 yards to a second den, where at least four young were seen; it was empty by 13 June.

- Most hunting was inside the 1,200-acre reserve, but the foxes regularly went in and out under the fence.

### 3. What they concluded

- The main foods of the red fox here were cottontail rabbit, lemming-vole, meadow mouse and beetles.

- Bird predation was highest in March and lowest in the nesting season.

- Foxes capture more food than they can eat and cache the surplus; skunks, crows, marsh hawks and owls use these caches, so the extra kills still feed other animals.

- Shrews and moles are often caught but seldom eaten or cached.

- Food at the den differed from food elsewhere: more rabbit and insects, fewer mice.

- What a fox eats depends largely on what is easy to catch; prey such as deer-mice and fox squirrels that live with good cover or are active by day were taken less.

- The fox’s economic effect is both harmful and beneficial. Murie argues it should be allowed to live in fair numbers, controlled mainly by hunting and trapping, and values the “touch of wildness” a fox gives to farm country.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracking was the main field method. Murie followed fox trails in fresh snow after each snowfall and read the hunting story from tracks and signs: sharp turns and pounces, chases with rabbit and fox jump lengths, blood spots, fur, caches (marked by disturbed snow), beds, nose marks in the snow, scent (urine) marks, droppings and gait changes from trot to gallop. He used track size to tell the larger male’s trail from the female’s, and track spacing to describe trotting (generally 11 to 16 inches; nine to eleven inches for one fox he watched). He also read other animals’ tracks and signs at caches and carcasses (skunk, crow, hawk and owl whitewash, down feathers) and followed deer tracks for a parallel deer study. He calls tracking “practically equivalent to observing an animal for a long period of time under natural conditions; the trail is a sign language which only needs a certain amount of interpretation to be understood.” Snow was limited in southern Michigan, so tracking days were few, and he could follow only part of each night’s trails. Droppings were collected from trails and burrow mounds; he discusses how hard it is to tell fox droppings from those of badgers, opossums, coyotes and skunks, and explains why he thought few of his were from other species.

### 5. Tracker or observer certification

Not reported. Murie did all the tracking himself; no tracking qualification or test is described.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Comparing two independent methods, kills read from trails and food remains in droppings, to check each other.

- Revisiting caches to find out which other animals used them.

- Hand drawings of trail stories (pounces, shrew capture and caching, a rabbit chase and cache) and photographs of caches, dens and prey habitat.

### 7. Implications for conservation (from the paper)

- Close study of one area and a few animals over time gives more exact knowledge of food habits, which is needed to make sound decisions about carnivores.

- In spite of heavy fox predation, rabbits stayed abundant, showing that fox and rabbit can live together in one place.

- Predator surplus kills feed other species and fit into a “scheme of natural balances”.

- The fox should be allowed its “rightful niche”, with land managed for both economic and aesthetic interests rather than for small minority groups.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- This early study shows how much a tracker can learn from snow trails that droppings alone cannot reveal: caching, surplus killing, which prey are killed but not eaten, and which other animals use the caches.

- Murie’s careful cross-checking of trail evidence against dropping analysis, and his caution about identifying droppings by appearance alone, remain good examples of testing tracks and signs interpretations against independent evidence.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Following Fox Trails (Murie, 1936). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1936-murie-following-fox-trails/