Brian Clopp first stumbled upon kit foxes completely by accident.
On a trip photographing wild horses in the deserts of Utah, he spotted a few small, sandy heads poking up from the ground, and couldn’t help stopping for a closer look. The Blaine wildlife photographer parked a few hundred feet away to avoid spooking them, but the animals had other ideas. They promptly ran up to his Jeep and began chewing on its tires.
“They were curious, and it was probably the first car they’d ever seen,” Clopp said. “I immediately changed my plans and canceled my flights and stayed with them to photograph them. It was an incredible experience.”
He spent the next few days camping in the desert, taking every opportunity available to snap a picture, capturing one image of a fox wrapping its bushy tail around another’s neck. The photograph, titled, “Who are you wearing,” won the $5,000 grand prize in this year’s inaugural Hand ‘Em Down, Not Over photo contest through The Wilderness Society.
The encounter introduced Clopp to North America’s fastest and smallest fox species, the elusive kit fox. Now, he uses his images to draw attention to them in Utah, where officials have identified them as vulnerable to habitat loss and in need of conservation. Finding them takes a considerable amount of planning and patience.
“You can spend weeks and not find them at all,” he said.
To avoid the scorching climate of the deserts they inhabit, kit foxes are nocturnal. They use a complex system of underground dens, moving between multiple in a region. They typically weigh 3 to 6 pounds, and are about the size of an adult chihuahua, easily camouflaged by their tan coloring and small stature.
“Trying to find one is like whack-a-mole,” Clopp said. “They’ll literally peek up out of the ground, and then they’ll dart under and emerge somewhere far away.”
As night falls, the kit foxes surface from their dens to hunt, and, once finished, will spend their time playing with other foxes and napping. Clopp said there’s about a two-hour window of time in the morning and evening when there’s enough light to capture photos.
Clopp car-camped in the desert, braving wind and extreme temperatures, and even adjusting his sleep schedule to maximize his opportunities to see and photograph them.
He said it’s paramount to ensure you have plenty of water on hand, pack food that won’t quickly spoil, and have adequate tools for emergencies. On one trip out, he got a flat tire and had to patch it himself, being miles away from the highway with no cell phone reception.
“It gets cold at night; it gets windy; it’s a very difficult environment, so I would be completely exhausted, and the car seat is not the most comfortable bed,” Clopp said.
One morning, Clopp was taking a nap and had a vivid dream where he heard three people talking about him. He described hearing two adults and a little girl asking why he was lying in the dirt. Was he safe? Was he injured?
He began trying to wake himself up.
“Look, he’s wiggling his finger,” one of the voices said.
But to his surprise, when he did wake, there weren't any people there at all. Instead, the faces of three kit foxes stared back at him.
“It was almost as if I had translated it in my sleep,” Clopp said. “They were chatting and looking at each other, and then they turned their heads and looked at me.”
He described it as a surreal, “Dr. Dolittle” moment, and leaves it up to others to interpret it for themselves. Just moments after, he took, “Who are you wearing,” among other photographs, which have won a number of additional awards.
Kit foxes are considered a species of greatest conservation need by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The division said that while there are indicators of a long-term decline in numbers, it has started stabilizing in the past few decades.
Kit foxes rely on expansive landscapes where they can hunt and den, and things like road construction, urban expansion and invasive grass species can cause major disturbances to their habitat. The division said habitat loss, fewer prey animals and an increase in nearby coyote species — predators of kit foxes — are among some of the biggest threats they face in Utah.
“What’s really special is it’s not about me, it’s about the fox,” Clopp said. “I just pressed the shutter button and these images are helping to raise awareness for the kit fox.”
“Who are you wearing,” was entered into The Wilderness Society’s 2026 inaugural photo contest as part of its Hand ‘Em Down, Not Over initiative to celebrate and protect public lands. A panel of six judges unanimously picked Clopp’s photo as the grand prize winner.
Mason Cummings, one of the contest judges and The Wilderness Society’s visual production manager, said the judges described the photo as a “once-in-a-lifetime” moment.
“Beyond the beautiful light and strong composition, the photograph captures extraordinary natural behavior and a sense of personality and connection between the animals,” Cummings wrote in an email to The Northern Light. “The conservation significance of the species elevated the image even further.”
Clopp’s experience with kit foxes has ignited a passion for them, and he has since joined researchers on trips documenting their behavior, gathering footage for a documentary and a photo book he is making about kit foxes.
He’s also decided to take the grand prize money and use it to launch two of his own photo contests next year: Abstract Photographer of the Year and Conservation Photographer of the Year. To see more of Clopp’s photography or to sign up for a photo tour with him, visit his website, winningshots.com.
“It’s amazing how one experience that takes just three days of your life ends up changing your trajectory for years to come,” he said.
