Social History and Domestication

As stated earlier, foxes have a distinct history of being wildlife, exotic as well as domesticated.  Because of this they have a rich background with humans.

For thousands of years, foxes have been hunted for multiple reasons, such as fur, meat, and more recently, sport.  The sport of fox hunting was incredibly popular with the English from the 16th century all the way to 2005, when it was deemed illegal.  Though it is best known for taking place in Great Britain, fox hunting happened throughout Europe, North America, and Australia.  The hunts used hounds to track down the fox when it would be killed.

In more recent years (1800's) fur farming has been a part of the history between foxes and humans.  The fur trade was very large for well over 100 years and was very lucrative.  Keeping the foxes in cages and breeding them for fur changed them from their wild counterparts as well.  Almost a psudeo-domestication effort as the animals became easier to tame, and more calm in the presence of humans.  In the last few years animals welfare and rights have become a very powerful force in animal industries, changing public perception of animal products.  With these groups, opinion on fur has changed from a status symbol to something to be scorned.  Fur farms are still present in the world, but in decreased numbers.

While the fur industry was a stepping off point for domestication of the red fox, real experiments have been taking place in Russia.  The experiment started in 1959 and is still going on to this day.  The goal was to study the domestication process and the silver fox (a subspecies of the red fox and still Vulpes vulpes) was chosen due to it being genetically similar to the wolf, the animal that dogs come from.  The process began by looking to the foxes that were most tame and breeding them together.  This was repeated each generation, while being careful to avoid inbreeding, since.  The results have been that the foxes used for breeding are excited to see and interact with humans, in many ways like a dog, showing that domestication process happens by looking for the most tame animals.  There were side effects of looking for the  most tame animals lead to changes in the phenotype of the foxes, which would keep floppy ears longer than wild ones, would have curly tails, and smaller skulls.


http://alligator-sunglasses.com/post/15127294524/just-a-pet-fox

Sources:
http://www.ypte.org.uk/animal/fox-red-/122
http://usfoxshipperscouncil.org/201204history-of-fox-farming-2
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/1999/2/early-canid-domestication-the-farm-fox-experiment/1