Some years ago I was hiking in a big nature preserve in the middle of Long Beach, California,( El Dorado Park Nature Preserve) and saw a beautiful red fox about fifty yards away. The ranger on duty said there was at least one pair in this sizeable park.
In the LA area much wildlife (especially raccoons, possums and skunks) live in large parks and use the storm drains (generally dry in the summer) to extend their hunting ranges almost anywhere they want.
The strangest wildlife I can recall seeing was…tarantulas. My late wife and I were driving from the Central Valley to Monterey by a lonely back road, and saw dozens of hairy tarantulas basking in the sun on the two-lane paved road. Weird, but I later learned this is common.
Sheep: saw some Monday at the fair, but there are also sheep on 580 running from Livermore west.
Fox: Yes, when I worked at Bell Labs outside of Princeton there was one living on the property, and I saw it a few times on weekends or when I left late.
Lassie Pie, a Rough Collie, hated fuckin’ coyotes and foxes and would say so with an almost inaudible “woof” that sent them scurrying apologetically, saying, “Sorry, ma’am.” The word spread and they still stay away, long after her death. My rodent killing Little Girls woulda liked her because she kept the competition away.
I see more foxes dead in the road than walking, but at least three or four living ones each year. Sheep, sure. I’ve even tried to milk one! Much harder than a cow, and my arms were too short so I gave up pretty quick. I wasn’t going to kneel in the muck to get a better hold. I’ve never sheared one though; it’s on my bucket list.
Yes to both - there is actually a vixen that dens near the Officer’s Mess on the base, so we see her regularly.
The OP reminded me of when I was in Arviat. There was a 3rd grad classroom with the majority of the students asking me what a tree looks like - they don’t have them that far North.
Sure, lots of times. I’m a taxi driver in Copenhagen and start work early in the morning. When the beginning of my day coincides with sunrise, I often see foxes scurrying home.
Sheep are rare inside Copenhagen, but all over when you get a bit outside the city.
Sure. Sheep, both domestic and wild (Dall sheep in Alaska can be seen from the road). Foxes both in zoos and in the wild. There was a red fox denning near our place in Anchorage.
I’d be more interested in finding out how an adult managed to NOT see a fox or a sheep. Neither are exactly rare animals (an understatement for sheep to say the least) and have a very wide range. I have seen foxes everywhere I have lived ranging from Louisiana to New England and I have worked with sheep. The latter is also a staple of petting zoos even in large cities. I am not sure how someone could spend a significant amount of time living in the U.S., Europe or parts of Asia without seeing them. I have heard of NYC kids that are so thoroughly urbanized that they have never seen a live chicken, goat or cow but that seems utterly foreign and sad to me and I doubt it applies to even many people there.
I am curious why the OP picked those two animals as opposed to more rare ones. I could almost understand if someone told me that they had never seen a bear, wolf, moose or caribou in the wild. Opossums, coyotes and raccoons would leave me scratching my head but it is still in the realm of possibility somehow. Managing to never see a fox or sheep though takes some work if you travel at all and have functioning eyes. That is like an Australian telling you that they have never seen a kangaroo.
I’ve seen estimates of fox numbers being around 4 to 6 per square kilometre in Australia’s rural regions and as high as 15 to 20 per sqkm in urban areas.
From what I’ve seen on farms at night the rural numbers seem about right.
ETA: News story about urban foxes in Melbourne putting numbers up to around 20 per sqkm.
I’ve seen both in real life. Sheep a few times. Foxes, often since moving to New England.
There’s a fox in my old neighborhood that didn’t get the memo to be stealthy. I saw it slowly trotting across the parking lot one morning. I stopped and looked at it, it stopped and looked at me. Several minutes passed, then it continued on its way, totally unconcerned.
I’ve only seen a fox that I know of once, in Allegheny State Park in NYS. (I may have seen more but mistaken them for dogs.)
Until a couple weeks ago I think I had only seen sheep in zoos. Then I took a 4 day hike on the Cotswold Way in England which went through plenty of open sheep pastures. And one not-so-open. There was a pair of gates that enclosed an area as long as a typical sheep enclosure, but was only as wide as a typical road. With around 100 sheep in it. It was sort of creepy to be exposed to such a large concentration. But not as actually scary as the time that a herd of cattle was lying right on the trail, with less than 100 feet between them and a sheer limestone cliff.
Lived in Japan for a bit… when I went fishing, the foxes would come up and beg for scraps like dogs. Diseased, emaciated things, so I was always generous.
