In 2008, a year after the pigs were eliminated, around 230 captive-bred foxes were released into the wild and now there are nearly 6,000 foxes on the four islands.
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Now, thanks to an aggressive recovery effort, US wildlife officials have removed three subspecies on San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands from the endangered list.
The fox is the 37th species that has been healthy enough to be removed from the endangered species list. Otherwise, 12 years back, the conditions were not in the favor of the Island foxes, a species around the size of a cat living in a group of islands off the Southern California coast.
Wildlife officials have removed three island fox subspecies on Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and San Miguel islands from the endangered list.
Only a few dozen foxes remained on three of the islands, San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. “Continued monitoring of these fox populations will be critical to be able to respond if there are outbreaks of disease, return of predatory golden eagles, or severe impacts to foxes and their habitat from climate change”.
“We’re ecstatic that we’ve reached this point so quickly”, said Steve Henry, field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Ventura.
In the late 1990s, these isolated foxes, which evolved to be top predators of their island ecosystems, saw populations plummet by more than 90 percent, mainly a result of predation by golden eagles that moved in to replace bald eagles, whose populations were decimated from exposure to DDT pesticide, according to authorities.
Populations have returned to self-sustaining levels ranging from an estimated 700 foxes on San Miguel Island to 2,100 foxes on Santa Cruz Island. Early ranchers brought non-native pigs to the island. In its place came the non-native golden eagle that preyed on feral pigs and island foxes.
By 2000, there were only a handful of island foxes.
The effort was not without controversy. Thousands of pigs were shot and killed, angering animal rights groups. Under the recovery program, they trapped the Island foxes, so that captive-breeding could be performed.
Years ago, “you would not have seen a fox”.
Island foxes are considerably smaller than their mainland ancestor, the gray fox.
Under President Barack Obama’s administration, 19 animals and plants have been pulled off the endangered species list, a number higher than any of the previous administrations, according to wildlife service director Dan Ashe.
The last US mammal to be removed from the list in record time was the eastern Steller sea lion in 2013 after more than two decades. The subspecies on two of those islands were never listed.
Biologists planned to monitor foxes on the northern Channel Islands by conducting periodic health checks and tagging select foxes with radio collars.
Island foxes have an innocent nature seldom found in animals.
Wildlife officials also began vaccinating the foxes against canine distemper, which remains a particular threat on Santa Catalina Island, the only island in the archipelago with a significant year-round civilian population.
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