Capture Program Launched to Save Threatened Foxes

Human interference has degraded the island habitat so severely that many foxes inhabiting remote Channel Islands National Park must be removed from the wild and placed in captivity to save them from extinction, federal officials said Wednesday.

Numbers of island foxes found at the park off the Ventura County coast have plummeted by 90% in the past four years, making the diminutive animal one of North America’s most imperiled canine species.

Only nine are known to remain at San Miguel Island, a former fox stronghold, where 450 animals were counted four years ago. Related subspecies of fox are faring little better at Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands.

Outlining a series of urgency measures at an island news conference, National Park Service officials said the best chance for the animals’ survival is to slowly rebuild their numbers through captive breeding. This extraordinary step has been successfully used in the past to rescue California condors and peregrine falcons.

“The threat is so huge at this point it’s the only way we can safeguard a core group of foxes,” said Tim Coonan, a National Park Service ecologist.

But that step is not without peril to the animals, either. Of two foxes captured in the past few days and put into pens on the windblown headlands of San Miguel Island, one female became severely ill and requires immediate veterinary care, said UCLA biologist Gary Roemer, who has worked with island foxes for 10 years.

“Whenever you bring wild animals into captivity, you have the potential to cause injury or mortality. It’s a trade-off,” Roemer said.

By summer, 20 foxes from San Miguel and Santa Rosa islands will be placed into captivity. Park Service officials say they have set aside $31,000 to pay for that work, but continuing the program for the next three years could cost $2 million--far more than the park can afford. The nonprofit National Park Foundation has launched a “Save the Island Fox” campaign, with a 1-888-GOPARKS hotline aimed at raising $150,000 by autumn.

In June, experts will meet at the park’s headquarters in Ventura to draft a comprehensive fox-recovery plan.

The announcement of the breeding effort occurs one month after a team of 17 specialists urged the Park Service to take immediate action to save three subspecies of island fox. Absent a swift response, the scientists warned that the animals on the northern Channel Islands would likely become extinct by the end of the year.

Distinct subspecies of island fox are found on the majority of Southern California’s offshore islands, including three of the five islands comprising Channel Islands National Park. Small populations on two other islands are holding steady. Ironically, at San Clemente Island, 15 foxes have been destroyed by the Navy to prevent them from eating the loggerhead shrike, an endangered bird.

No bigger than a house cat, the fox’s tufted red ears, plush-toy looks and gentle disposition endeared the animals to ancient Chumash Indians, who made pets of them. They are descendants of mainland foxes and are the largest terrestrial predators at Channel Islands National Park.

Dramatic changes to the island environment, begun once settlers arrived in the 19th century, continue to imperil foxes. Livestock grazing stripped the islands of shrubbery that foxes use to hunt and evade predators such as golden eagles, lured by feral pigs released by settlers. Eagles have killed four foxes in the past five months.

More foxes have died of heartworm, picked up from mainland dogs brought to the islands by their owners.

Roemer said heavy rains in the winter of 1994-95, which dumped 31 inches of rain on the park in a single month, may also have affected fox populations by wiping out grasshoppers and crickets. That coincides with the period population decline began, and then was accelerated by disease and eagle attacks.

Scientists plan to use nonlethal measures to shoo away golden eagles and prevent them from wintering on Santa Rosa Island. They hope to reintroduce bald eagles, which disappeared from the islands 40 years ago due to hunting and DDT pollution. Bald eagles, which eat fish instead of foxes, drive off golden eagles.