Hanging out with the fantastic golf-course foxes of San Jose

It’s not often you read a review of a public golf course that goes like this: “If you can cough up the dough and like a tighter, shorter course that’s usually well maintained, it’s worth a trip. Also, mind the foxes… they’re cheeky and will take anything that’s not nailed down. They even stole my dad’s phone once!”

Despite how Wes Anderson-y that review on Google Maps sounds, it’s true: The Los Lagos Golf Course in San Jose is home to a community of hungry, thieving red foxes. Cute red foxes, though! They’ve been running around on the green since at least 2015, when Mercury News journalist Eric Kurhi noted that golfers who “focus too closely on their next shot are discovering their unattended carts are easy prey for these four-footed ninjas at the 18-hole course in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

Kurhi explained their historical presence thus: “Unlike gray foxes – such as those famously occupying the Facebook campus in Menlo Park – the red variety was brought to California for fur farming and hunting purposes in the 1800s. Foxes escaped (of course they did) and many were released when operations ceased. They first appeared around San Francisco Bay in the 1980s and were well established within a decade.”

Parham Pourahmad is a young photographer from the South Bay who, over the past couple of years, has documented the golf foxes of San Jose, including their adorable pups. (Check out his award-winning California wildlife photography on Instagram at @wildphotop.)

“I was shocked that there was such cool wildlife in a golf course just 15 minutes from home,” Pourahmad says. “The foxes get their food by hunting the gophers on the course, which Los Lagos appreciates. They also steal food from golfers, such as sandwiches. Other people feed them, which isn’t a good idea. The alpha male fox is very used to humans and has begged me for food before. One interesting thing that the foxes do is stealing toys from golfers to play with. These range from stuffed animals to phones and wallets.”

The foxes are pretty easy to photograph, being used to humans, says Pourahmad. But it takes patience to capture them playing, fighting, eating or the pups roaming because they only come out of the den at sunset.

Then there’s the human factor. “Most of the golfers think the foxes are cool and stop to watch them,” he says. “But I have to be careful of golfers hitting at the hole I’m at.”