California Island Foxes on Endangered List

By TIM MOLLOY, AP

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, Calif. (March 4) - Four subspecies of the Channel Islands fox were added to the endangered species list Thursday because the docile, housecat-sized animals have been ravaged by eagles and a sickness spread by pet dogs.



AP
The foxes have lived on the islands for at least 16,000 years.

"We have to take drastic measures to be able to recover this population," said Lotus Vermeer of The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group that manages the island.

The subspecies living on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Catalina islands in the Pacific off Southern California will join more than 1,200 plants and animals listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as endangered or threatened. The protection allows federal authorities to restrict development of designated critical habitat.

The red-and-gray foxes, weighing 3 to 5 pounds, have lived on the islands for at least 16,000 years. Their populations declined as cattle ranching and mining damaged their habitat in the 1800s.

More recently, golden eagles drawn to the islands' population of nonnative feral pigs decimated the foxes. On Catalina, the fox population declined because of the spread of canine distemper from dogs.

Over the past six years the overall island fox population, including several subspecies that are not endangered, has dropped from 6,000 to fewer than 1,650.

Nine foxes from a captive breeding program were released on Santa Cruz Island last year but five were killed by eagles within weeks.

On Thursday, officials moved foxes into new pens. They plan to breed the animals while removing the golden eagles to the mainland and killing the pigs, said Tim Coonan, a biologist with the National Park Service.

If plans succeed, the foxes will regain their historical status at the top of the island's food chain.