DENVER — The road was still shrouded in pre-dawn darkness along Cameron Pass as Sue Emond drove toward State Forest State Park, about a two-hour drive from her home in Fort Collins. Tunes on the radio. Coffee in the cup holder. Headed out for a day of photographing moose, a favorite subject of hers.
That’s when she saw a dog.
Emond hates seeing dogs near highways. She pulled over into a trailhead parking lot, running down the next course of action within a few seconds: Try to coax the dog over, get it in the car, put a leash on it, try to find its owners.
But then she focused on the animal. No, it was not a dog.
“There was just enough light for me to see, oh my gosh, it's a silver fox,” she told Denver7.
She grabbed her camera, hoped the adjustments were set properly and just started shooting. Her experience in wildlife photography had taught her time and time again that wildlife doesn’t usually stand still for long.
After about 15 seconds, the fox took off. In the darkness, Emond didn’t expect much from the shots. Still, as she continued her drive to the state park, she was riding a high.
“You know, I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. I was ready to just say, ‘Well, that's my day. I'm going home. I found a silver fox,’” she remembered.
When she was back home, she loaded the silver fox photos into Photoshop. She tinkered with the shadows, highlights, brightness, contract, exposure — anything and everything to make the photos bright and crisp.
The work paid off.
It was in those moments at her computer that she learned more about the animal. That’s how it typically goes for her when she photographs wildlife. On her computer, she gets to zoom in on the precious particulars. For the silver fox, the details of its eyes stunned her.
“They were mysterious and intense, but also really gentle,” she described. “Those eyes are just like, wow. That moment will always be with me. That moment will always be with me.”
To this day, more than four years later, it remains one of her favorite moments within her time photographing wildlife.
“What a great gift nature provided me to be able to see that beautiful animal,” she said, grinning. “My gosh.”
Watch Denver7's feature story with local photographers about the rare experience of photographing one of these unique animals in the video below.
So, what exactly makes silver foxes different from red foxes? We brought the question to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Spokeswoman Kara Van Hoose told us silver foxes are technically a melanistic color variant of red foxes, and the unique color is a genetic recessive trait. It's sort of similar to Colorado's black bears that can be brown or tan, she explained. Across the state, foxes can appear as red, silver, black and a mix of the colors. They are scavengers and opportunistic omnivores — a pair was even spotted at Coors Field a few years ago — and are frequently spotted in the foothills, Front Range and eastern plains.
Foxes that have the silver or black fur mutation are rarer and "it's definitely more special" to see the distinct animals, Van Hoose said, adding that people tend to spot them more in the winter, when their dark fur provides a strong contrast against snow.
Like any wildlife, she stressed the importance of giving silver foxes plenty of space and to never feed them.
With all their time spent outside, it's no surprise that park rangers have seen silver foxes around the Front Range. Ranger Lane Fahrenbruch with Larimer County Parks and Open Space said on a snowy February day, he and other staff stepped outside for a break at exactly the right time.
"We happened to see this black and silver kind of animal walking around," he said. "And I thought it was a stray dog at first, but then the more I got to looking, I'm like, 'This is a fox and a color I've never seen before.' ... And a bunch of us got together and pulled out our phones and started taking pictures and videos of it, just because it was such a unique animal."
The creature sniffed around for a few minutes in the snow before it melted into the bushes and disappeared from view. Fahrenbruch said another ranger watching the fox explained the rarity of the coloring, prompting the group to do some research afterward to learn more about the animal.
His advice if you see a silver fox?: "If visitors do see them — anybody sees them — out in the wild, just to let them be, to definitely take those photos, but not get too close, and please don't feed them. Keep them wild," he said.
Emond and Fahrenbruch are in the exclusive club of Coloradans who have seen a silver fox, but they are also part of an even more special group who have captured a photograph of the shy animal. Some of those lucky few have posted their photos of silver foxes in Denver7's Discover Colorado | Through Your Photos page on Facebook.
We caught up with Paul J. Marcotte, a fellow wildlife photographer in that group who has shared his stunning photos of the elusive silver fox. When we spoke with him, he was in his parked car in Estes Park, with his camera ready in the passenger seat in case any wildlife passed by.
Marcotte, who lives in Longmont, said the more he goes out looking for powerful photos, the more he finds excellent subjects.
"I am truly blessed in that I drive around a lot in Estes Park and stuff crosses my path a lot," he explained. "Some of the wildlife that I'm interested in photographing, I have to sit and wait for a long time. But a lot of times it just crosses my path and I have my camera… My camera is always riding shotgun, so I'm always ready to go in a moment's notice, because, you know, the wildlife doesn't stick around for long."
In the early fall of 2022, Marcotte started hearing rumblings of a silver fox in the Glen Haven area near Estes Park. He said he went down there "probably 30 times" before he got lucky on Sept. 20 of that year.
As he sat in his car on the side of the road, he heard a driver hit their brakes hard. He looked up.
"And right then, here comes the little silver fox, and it wasn't afraid at all," he remembered. "So, I have my camera sitting there ready, and... The first thing you want to do is just get a couple good shots, and if it runs off, then you have that. But if it sticks around like this fox did, then you can try and get some better compositions and a little closer photo. My lens goes to 600 millimeters, so it looks like I'm right there, but I'm actually 100 yards away."
The silver fox sat in the grass for a bit, yawned and peered at him a few times. Marcotte snapped away. Three or four minutes later, it disappeared.
He said animals like the silver fox — similar to the piebald elk in Estes Park — garner massive attention because they are so different.
"I'll never forget it," Marcotte said. "I was just thrilled to see one. I want to see another one, of course. But I'll just have to keep my camera out and hope I see another one."
Click below to see more great photos of silver foxes around Colorado from photographers in Denver7's Discover Colorado | Through Your Photos group on Facebook.
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PHOTO GALLERY: Silver foxes in Colorado
We welcome photographers of any level to our Discover Colorado | Through Your Photos page on Facebook, where more than 230,000 people across the state and beyond share their photos of our beautiful home. And we love sharing their stories about their excellent captures. Click this link to join the group.