The Hidden World of the Fox

by Adele Brand, Jane McDowell (Read by)

Overview

Ecologist Adele Brand has devoted her life to understanding the fabled yet enigmatic fox. Now she reveals their secrets in this extraordinary portrait of our most remarkable wild neighbors.

The fox. For thousands of years myth and folklore have celebrated its cunning intelligence. Today the red fox is the nature’s most populous carnivore, its dancing orange tail a common sight in backyards. Yet who is this wild neighbor, truly? How do we negotiate this uneasy new chapter of an ancient relationship? Join British ecologist Adele Brand on a journey to discover the surprising secrets of the fabled fox, the familiar yet enigmatic creature that has adapted to the human world with astonishing—some say, unsettling—success.

Brand has studied foxes for twenty years across four continents—from the Yucatán rainforest to India’s remote Thar Desert, from subarctic Canada to metropolitan London. Her observations have convinced her that the fox is arguably the most modern of all wildlife, uniquely suited to survival in the rapidly expanding urban/wild interface. Blending cutting-edge science, cultural anthropology, and intimate personal storytelling drawn from her own remarkable fieldwork, The Hidden World of the Fox is Brand’s rich and revelatory portrait of the extraordinary animal she has devoted her life to understanding.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781094026091
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/22/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

ADELE BRAND met her first fox as a child in England’s Surrey Hills, a fragile border between urban London and the rural southeast. Now a mammal ecologist, she has led research in five countries. She is passionate about connecting people with wildlife.

Jane McDowell’s
work spans theater, film, television, and radio. Her film work includes a leading role in the award-winning Twelve in a Box, leading roles in several Bollywood movies, and numerous shorts.
She appeared in the BBC drama Dustbin
Baby and has recorded plays and poetry readings for BBC Radio.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Who Is the Fox? 1

1 A Brief History of the Fox 11

2 Where do Foxes Live? 29

3 What Does the Fox Look Like? 43

4 Fox Family Matters 55

5 The Fox and Its Neighbours 71

6 What Does the Fox Say? 91

7 Counting Foxes 107

8 In Sickness and in Health 119

9 Predators Among Us 135

10 When the Fur Flies 149

11 Tornado in a Cage 161

Epilogue: Fame and Foxes 175

The Fox Watcher's Toolkit 181

Acknowledgments 195

Bibliography 197

Editorial Reviews

Brand, who has set out to write of foxes as an "honest biographer," is by turns lyrical, salty, funny and scholarly as she describes the nuances of fox existence.

The New York Times Book Review - Vicki Constantine Croke

08/12/2019

Mammal ecologist Brand offers a spirited look at the red fox in this smart and accessible volume. In the introduction, Brand traces a lifelong pursuit which has included writing about foxes in childhood diaries, studying them in college, and, more recently, fostering orphaned cubs and injured adults for the Fox Project charity. Early chapters focus on their distinctive appearance and hugely varied habitats. Noting that foxes can survive across the “full measure of the world’s diverse environments,” Brand recalls seeing them both in India’s Thar Desert, among “a scrubby thicket of what the local people call toothbrush bushes,” and in London, “on a patch of grass under one of Brixton’s tower blocks, half illuminated by streetlight.” Subsequent sections deal with foxes’ “paradoxical” interactions with each other—which reveal them as simultaneously “independent and interdependent”—and with other animals, including rabbits, rodents, and deer. Even a digression on 2014’s viral music video “What Does the Fox Say?” proves fruitful, with Brand discussing the full range of things which foxes do “say.” Thanks to this mix of biology, personal history, and pop culture, Brand’s readers will be left both entertained and better informed about “this small, curious member of the dog family.” (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

By turns lyrical, salty, funny and scholarly. … The sight of foxes can lift [Brand’s] prose into poetry. … [An] ode to this familiar yet mysterious creature.” — New York Times Book Review

“A lovely little book. Quietly lyrical, often funny. [An] ideal stocking filler.” — Sunday Times (London)

"Brand has studied foxes on four different continents for 20 years. She shares her observations and the history of an animal remarkably adaptable to human environments." — Los Angeles Times, "New and Classic Books to Keep You in Touch with the Natural World"

“Beautifully written. … Eminent British mammal ecologist Brand pens a tribute to the red fox.” — Library Journal

“Mammal ecologist Brand offers a spirited look at the red fox in this smart and accessible volume. ... Thanks to her mix of biology, personal history, and pop culture, Brand’s readers will be left both entertained and better informed about ‘this small, curious member of the dog family.’” — Publishers Weekly

“Succinct, clear, sophisticated. I couldn’t stop reading.” — Jeff VanderMeer, bestselling author of Annihilation and the Southern Reach Trilogy

“Provides everything you ever wanted to know about the fox.” — Kirkus Reviews

“This charming book leads us into the lives of red foxes. . … Brand paints a wonderful picture of a wild neighbor.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

"Brand has studied foxes on four different continents for 20 years. She shares her observations and the history of an animal remarkably adaptable to human environments."

|Los Angeles Times

This charming book leads us into the lives of red foxes. . … Brand paints a wonderful picture of a wild neighbor.

Booklist

Succinct, clear, sophisticated. I couldn’t stop reading.

Jeff VanderMeer

By turns lyrical, salty, funny and scholarly. … The sight of foxes can lift [Brand’s] prose into poetry. … [An] ode to this familiar yet mysterious creature.

New York Times Book Review

A lovely little book. Quietly lyrical, often funny. [An] ideal stocking filler.

Sunday Times (London)

This charming book leads us into the lives of red foxes. . … Brand paints a wonderful picture of a wild neighbor.

Booklist

Jane McDowell is an experienced and effective narrator of romances and mysteries, and what could be more romantic or more mysterious in nature than the fox—and its amazing adaptability to the contemporary urban setting? For some of us, British ecologist Adele Brand may be too focused on the British landscape, leaving the American listener to wonder how much of what she reports applies here as well. That aside, she offers a detailed and highly informative narrative, and McDowell’s especially engaging performance blends easily into the voice of the author, enhancing her positivism and love of nature. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

Jane McDowell is an experienced and effective narrator of romances and mysteries, and what could be more romantic or more mysterious in nature than the fox—and its amazing adaptability to the contemporary urban setting? For some of us, British ecologist Adele Brand may be too focused on the British landscape, leaving the American listener to wonder how much of what she reports applies here as well. That aside, she offers a detailed and highly informative narrative, and McDowell’s especially engaging performance blends easily into the voice of the author, enhancing her positivism and love of nature. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile

2019-08-18
A British ecologist explores human encroachment on the world of the fox.

Though there's a close connection between dogs and foxes, there is also a world of difference. Dogs and humans have evolved together for 36,000 years, and the household pets are "practically symbiotic with human beings." Foxes remain wild animals, but what was once wilderness has often become a golf course, bringing the animal into contact with humans, which often fear the fox and occasionally try to domesticate it, benefitting neither species. Brand clearly loves foxes and has devoted much of her life to studying them: "They make the world a more mysterious and interesting place." The author casts them in a realistic perspective, as natural creatures, showing that much of what we fear about them—and some of what we find attractive—is the result of misunderstandings. "The fox is not an intruder into our world," she writes. "We have simply laid our modern ambitions over the landscape it already knew." So the fox may attack the bird we have caged, though wild foxes pose little threat to birds in the wild, and they occasionally bite the hand that feeds them when humans mistakenly assume that feeding them might somehow build a relationship. Brand's philosophy comes down to live and let live; we should keep our impact and influence on the fox as light as possible, and the fox in turn will likely have negligible impact on us. "I wish to know them as individuals," she writes, "to learn the stories of their lives as an honest biographer—and to be a mediator, hoping to keep the peace between human and fox." Among the revelations here are that foxes typically weigh less than an average house cat, that they navigate by way of the Earth's magnetic field, and that vixen are only fertile three days per year.

A pleasant nature book that provides everything you ever wanted to know about the fox.

Kirkus Reviews