{"id":548299,"date":"2026-03-18T12:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548299\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T12:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:10:08","slug":"video-shows-fox-hunting-wolf-in-first-documented-case-of-its-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548299\/","title":{"rendered":"Video shows fox hunting wolf in first documented case of its kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have for the first time documented a red fox preying on a wolf pup, upending what was known about the pecking order<\/a> among the two related species.<\/p>\n

Wolves are typically much larger and have been known to occasionally kill foxes,<\/a> but the reverse had never been documented by science.<\/p>\n

That is until video footage from a nature reserve in Italy showed a red fox <\/a>attacking and killing a wolf pup in its den.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the University of Sassari in Italy were studying how wolves moved through the Castelporziano Presidential Estate, a protected area on the outskirts of Rome, and had installed a number of motion-activated cameras at a den site to monitor how wolves raised their young.<\/p>\n

One night, one of the cameras captured a red fox probing the den\u2019s entrance, and feeding on unidentified food remains. It then ventured inside and dragged a live pup out.<\/p>\n

The wolf cub was able to struggle free and escaped back into the den, but the fox went in a second time and was seen taking the cub away.<\/p>\n

Researchers said it was safe to presume that the fox killed and ate the pup, as it\u2019s not seen again in the footage.<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

Red fox preying on a wolf pup in May 2025 (Current Zoology)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this work, we report the first video-documented evidence of a red fox repeatedly attacking and likely preying upon a wolf pup, approximately one month old, at the den site, representing a novel observation of direct predatory interaction between the two species,\u201d the researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Current Zoology.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a single pup was subsequently detected across a substantially larger number of recordings, indirectly corroborating red fox predation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, the wolf pack permanently abandoned the den site, presumably because it was compromised.<\/p>\n

Scientists said the fox\u2019s behaviour was particularly surprising as this individual had plenty of other food available in its forest habitat, including young deer.<\/p>\n

They said it was likely an example of red foxes\u2019 \u201cextreme opportunistic feeding strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur observation broadens the known range of antagonistic interactions affecting wolf offspring, demonstrating that even mesocarnivores (small-to-medium sized carnivorous mammals) can exert direct pressure on the reproductive performance of this apex predator,” they wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis single observation provides novel insight into fox\u2013wolf interactions and underscores the value of field-based monitoring in capturing unexpected behaviours that warrant further investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have for the first time documented a red fox preying on a wolf pup, upending what was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,199414,128,338,271272],"class_list":["post-548299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-red-fox","tag-science","tag-wildlife","tag-wolf-pup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}