Island Foxes
They became my life’s work, these little guys. At four or five pounds, island foxes are smaller than housecats, and undeniably cute (a fact that no doubt helped garner attention, and funding, when they became an endangered species). When I arrived at Channel Islands National Park in 1992, island foxes were not in trouble; they were merely an unusual species unique to those islands, and one which warranted monitoring due to its small population sizes. Within several years, all that had changed. Island foxes had declined precipitously - to the point of being threatened with extinction - and we didn’t know why. Read on to find out what was killing them, and how island foxes were eventually yanked back from the brink of extinction.
