The Environment

Red foxes at home at Merrick's Levy Park and Preserve

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With the sun beating down at mid-morning, a girls’ cross-country team was recently running up and down the half-mile-long hill on the south side of the Town of Hempstead’s Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve in Merrick, sweating profusely and breathing hard in the 90-degree-plus heat.

Taking it all in from the side of the seashell-coated path was a red fox –– yes, a red fox –– which stood in the shade, motionless and silent, panting continuously, its eyes half-shut. The runners appeared unfazed by its presence.

The creature is one of a half-dozen or more foxes that have taken up residence amid the thick underbrush of Levy Preserve, a 52-acre nature sanctuary just south of Merrick Road and east of the Meadowbrook Parkway.

Rangers had long heard stories of foxes roaming the preserve, practically from the time that the sanctuary opened to the public on Oct. 22, 2000, said Michael McConnell, the town’s deputy sanitation commissioner since 2001. There were, however, no confirmed fox sightings until two years ago, he said.

“We had our doubts about the veracity of the sightings,” McConnell said.

Then rangers and park-goers started to capture the animals in photos and videos, often shot on cell phones. “I had to suspend my disbelief at that point,” he said.

‘Nature taking its course’
The town’s Sanitation Department is responsible for maintaining Levy Preserve because it was created atop a former landfill that grew to 115 feet above sea level at its highest point. The landfill opened in 1950 and closed in 1984.

There is an abundance of wildlife at the preserve, which offers panoramic views of New York City and the Atlantic Ocean. Red-winged blackbirds and swallows flit through the locust and ailanthus trees. Raccoons, squirrels and feral cats live there as well. To the south is Merrick Bay, and to the west are hundreds of acres of Spartina grass mudflats, where great white egrets ply shallow channels in search of small fish to feast on.

Foxes, which are generally reclusive, nocturnal creatures, mate for life, according to the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Over each of the past two years, an estimated six fox pups have been born at the preserve, McConnell said, noting that the town keeps a careful count of wildlife at the preserve, including birds and fish.

The town, he said, welcomes the foxes. “It’s nature taking its course,” he said. “We have an obligation to respect that.”

‘A critical tipping point’
No one is certain where the foxes came from. They might have arrived from the south, where they are known to live along the shoreline, including at Robert Moses State Park, or they might have wandered in from the Meadowbrook Parkway woodlands, according to McConnell.

Victor Elefante, of Bellmore, is a sanitation worker and part-time veterinary assistant. He said he worries that habitat destruction is forcing wild animals like foxes to seek shelter in Nassau County’s relatively small nature preserves. “I feel like we’re at a critical tipping point,” he said. “We’re at a saturation point with people.”

More and more animals are migrating west from Suffolk County, as development out east becomes increasingly common, Elefante said he believes. “Somebody has to suffer,” he said. “It seems these animals –– the deer, the fox, the raccoons –– are now pushing further west to get away from the development.”

Red foxes have long been common on Long Island, but are increasingly having trouble finding habitats, according to an August 2008 study by Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, out east, and Boston University.

“Foxes play an important role in Long Island ecosystems as one of the few remaining predatory animals in the area,” Jennifer Higbie and Renee Fallier wrote in a research paper. According to the two, island-based foxes often disperse over significantly smaller ranges than do mainland foxes, and as a result they “experience severe lack of genetic variation.”

The problem is only exacerbated by development. “Most fox habitats on Long Island are highly fragmented by roads and commercial and residential areas, which may further inhibit dispersal, home range size and other natural behaviors,” Higbie and Fallier wrote.

In 2012, Newsday reported that nine red foxes were trapped and euthanized at Robert Moses State Park because, according to the DEC, they were feeding on the piping plovers that nest there. The piping plover is federally protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The fox is not.

‘A safe haven’
Levy Preserve is a “safe haven” for the foxes, McConnell said. “These are fortunate foxes in that regard,” he added.

He further noted that the town has no plans to move the animals to a wilder location. “We accept what Mother Nature intends,” he said.

The foxes, he said, “are beautiful animals. We’re always looking for diversity in nature and the population we preserve.”

According to the DEC, the Levy Preserve is a perfect habitat for red foxes, which like to burrow in hillsides covered by dense vegetation. They prefer that the hills are beside large fields, where they can hunt for mice. The east side of the preserve, where the foxes have dug their dens, sits beside a town golf course.
The suburbs “provide ample habitat and a substantial prey base” for red foxes, according to the DEC. “Broken wood lines alongside lawns, roadside ditches and utility rights-of-way provide plenty of cover and potential denning sides,” the DEC states on its website.

A number of foxes, the DEC explains, have been pushed from upstate New York into Long Island by expanding coyote populations. According to the agency, the coyote is a potential predator of the red fox, which is a relatively small animal. Foxes weigh five to 30 pounds, while coyotes are 20 to 50 pounds.

Lori Belbol, an English teacher from Merrick, runs at the Levy Preserve four times a week. She said she loves having the foxes there. “I think it’s cool,” she said. “I think it’s fun to look for them. When I’m running, I’m always looking for them now.”

Belbol recently spotted a fox during an 8:45 a.m. run. “One of the foxes was just standing in the middle of the busy path by the golf course,” she said. “Tons of people were just walking by and going around it. People seemed very surprised that it was just standing there, especially a mother with a baby stroller. No one seemed scared, but no one was stopping to get a closer look. After a few minutes, it just walked off to the side, where it hung out and then went into the bushes.”