Beyond nutrition, food plays an important role within the gray fox family’s structure. During my initial ethological studies in Central California on the behavior of the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus townsendi) among their many behaviors, I noted that the foxes kept any food that they may have captured to themselves. Gray foxes do not share food. Before the family’s pups learn how to effectively hunt, catch and consume their own prey, the adult pair hunt for and bring back prey to their natal den. The gray fox family’s hierarchy is established through conflict over food.

I first saw the hierarchy forming on one of the videos from our trail cameras. At first all the five pups chased and played around the fennel stalks and into the weeds. Chase and play, it’s happy fun. One of the adults brought in a jack rabbit and dropped it in a small clearing nearby. Instantly, the pup’s play morphed into greed. The pups scrambled to take possession of this rabbit. One of the pups raced for the prize but before it could take charge, two others took hold and a screaming, shrieking tug-of-war ensued. The remaining two pups worked to take hold too. Finally, after a crazy mix of pups battling for exclusive possession, two of them pulled the hindquarters away from the others. They charged up and over a large polyethylene pipe, one tugging at one end of the rabbit’s leg and the other tugging at the other one for all of its might. The rabbit’s hindquarters tore in two and both pups dashed off into the dark, leaving the other three with nothing to eat. In the end, that pup, the one that regularly gets the most food, becomes the alpha pup of the family. All the rest of them fill a lower niche in the family’s culture.

One Saturday morning, as Greg, one of the cofounders and I made the rounds of our trail cameras we came upon the alpha pup Fearless. Her three siblings were nearby. I saw one up in a coyote bush, just up the hill and the others were lying about, eyeing Fearless as she ate. They waited for her to walk away and leave the rest of that squirrel’s carcass to them. By that time in their lives, each of the pups knew its place in the hierarchy; all the way down to the omega, the last gray fox named Shy. She lay off to the left of the other pups. She might get nothing from that food chain and so, in Shy’s case, she learned to be patient. Fearless took one last bite of that squirrel. She walked off toward Harbor Hill. One by one the other gray fox pups came for the left-overs.

Similarly, on another occasion, freelance journalist Tom and I stood at the edge of Fox Hollow Hill with four young pups chasing in and out of the nearby brush and climbing out on a fallen eucalyptus branch. These four pups were Mama Bold and her mate Gray’s litter. As Tom took several photographs, I noticed one of the adults trotting across the road toward the hill, carrying something in its mouth. I called Tom’s attention to what I thought would be an interesting situation, yet I had no idea what was about to transpire in but less than a minute. Through the tall grass Gray came up onto the hill no more than 10 feet away. He dropped a dead squirrel in the midst of his racing, dashing pups. Instantly, one snatched up the squirrel and ran for the bushes, but before it could get undercover, another took hold. They fought, ripping at the rodent. A third pup snatched up a hind leg and ran. The remaining pup hung in the background as if simply waiting for the ruckus to settle down.

From multiple observations over several consecutive years, it appeared as if the strongest and/or the most aggressive pup emerged as the dominant or alpha pup. This part of the gray fox culture is aimed at maximum survival of the fittest and it is not gender biased.