Tiny island foxes make remarkable, record-setting recovery

Three once-threatened groups of foxes residing on an island off the Southern California coast have made history as the fastest creatures to recover from the US Endangered Species List, officials announced on Thursday.

In a statement, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, confirmed that the San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Island fox subspecies had been removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, just 12 years after their declining numbers first earned them a place on the register.

US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell called their recovery “an incredible success story,” as well as “a model for partnership-driven conservation efforts across the country.” A fourth subspecies of fox, the Santa Catalina Island fox, was also down listed from endangered to threatened.

“The remarkably rapid recovery of the island fox shows the power of partnership, focus, and science,” added Scott Morrison, Director of Conservation Science at The Nature Conservancy. “Many aspects of this recovery effort – from its scientific rigor to the collaborative enterprise that drove it – can serve as model to advance conservation elsewhere.”

Mammals had been given a 50 percent chance of extinction by 2010

According to Reuters and the Washington Post, the diminutive foxes have called the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California home for several thousand years, but during the 19th century, their numbers started to decline when settlers brought livestock to the islands.

Some of the pigs those settlers brought with them got loose and attracted golden eagles, which began to prey on both the swine and the foxes. During the late 1990s, the number of foxes fell to less than 200, according to reports, but as of last year, there are now nearly 6,000 of them.

When they were officially listed as endangered in 2004, the rare mammals were given a 50-50 chance of dying out by the end of the decade. However, thanks to efforts to remove feral pigs from the islands, reduce the influx of golden eagles and vaccinate them against canine distemper, the population numbers of all four subspecies are at or above historic levels, officials said.

“It’s remarkable to think that in 2004, these foxes were given a 50 percent chance of going extinct in the next decade. Yet here we are today, declaring three of the four subspecies recovered and the fourth on its way,” said FWS Director Dan Ashe. “That’s the power of the ESA – not just to protect rare animals and plants on paper, but to drive focused conservation that gets dramatic results.”

Island foxes are roughly the same size as a house cat, standing about one-foot tall and weighing between three and five pounds, according to Reuters. The Channel Islands are the only places on Earth where they can be found, and as of 2015, there are 700 foxes on San Miguel Island, 1,200 on Santa Rosa Island,2,100 on Santa Cruz Island and 1,800 on Santa Catalina Island.

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Image credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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