“My Number One, top of the list by some distance, would be the red fox. I’ve spent more time photographing foxes than any other mammal. They are astonishingly beautiful. I always say a fox can hold a torch to a tiger. Certainly for me, I don’t share my space with tigers, but I share my space with foxes, they are part and parcel of my life. I smell them, I see them, I hear them, occasionally I have got to feel them. They are a bigger part of my life than those creatures which are well known for being natures greatest masterpieces, like the tiger and so on.

There are many beautiful things which we would all like to photograph, but there are other animals which I would argue need to be photographed because we need to change people´s perceptions of them. In the UK, the red fox continues to be needlessly persecuted, horribly hunted and demonized, yet it’s the most successful small canid in the world. It is a remarkably adaptable species. Here in the UK, it’s an animal that even some of our urban and city dwellers share their space with.

The red fox needs to be more widely appreciated. It’s ecology and behaviour need to be better understood. As a consequence, I would stick that on top of my Big 5, so that we can ensure we change the reputation of this animal and it can continue to prosper. At the moment, although foxes are increasing in urban environments, they’ve been declining in the rural environment in the UK since the mid-1990s, so they’re not as common as they used to be for a multitude of reasons, some nefarious, some natural.”

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My Big 5

Red Fox
Snow Leopard
Water Shrew
Black Rat
African Elephant