Take the musings of wildlife writers with a grain of salt, particularly when it comes to the feeding habits of predators. Cats and other small pets are not safe from foxes.
I live in a residential area which backs up to open space which is mostly grassland, but has some brushy areas, a few old eucalyptus groves, a pond and a small year-round creek. Properties which border the open space have extended lots. Foxes used to be scarce around here—I'd heard that a rabies outbreak in the 1960's had decimated their numbers—but last year a pair established a den in my "back 40".
It was really an experience. The adults were a little more wary, and probably away hunting most of the time, but the three pups had a pretty good balance of curiosity and fear, and would stalk and spy on me as I worked in the yard, always keeping a safe distance. They tended to lay low in the daytime, so I'd most often see them at dusk. Typical of pups, they were playful, darting around, rolling, tumbling and wrestling. I'd see the adults occasionally cruising the street and front yards of the neighborhood in the dusk as they made their rounds.
Their favorite toy seemed to be daylilies in nursery pots. They'd knock them over, dump the root ball, then bite, swat and roll that around, usually until the soil was completely removed. It would take serious effort on my part to do such a thorough job of taking apart a root-bound daylily.
Naturally, the rascals couldn't settle for tearing just one pot apart at a time, so plants were mixed and labels were lost, but I was able to identify them this year after they bloomed.
There are a lot of feral cats in the area, and also quite a few free-run domestic cats which cut through my yard to get to the open space. During the time the foxes were there, I found remnants of two cat carcasses in the yard. I also learned that one of the neighbors raised pigeons, based on the number of tagged pigeon feet I found in the fox "play" area. One day they scored a discarded bag from a fast food eatery and brought that back for the kids to enjoy. There was a lot of cleanup involved.
Eventually I quit seeing them together as a group, so I was never certain how many of them were still hanging out. Hopefully they grew independent and moved on, but it wouldn't surprise me if one was taken out by an irate pigeon keeper.
They were a pain, to be sure, but how often does someone get the opportunity to watch a litter of foxes grow up? I really enjoyed their time here, it was quite an experience.
