This Island Fox Pup Needs You!

Across the Channel Islands, winter rains have renewed the native island plants and increased food resources for island foxes. 

2019 should be a good year for island fox pups!

Most island foxes are born in April. For the first several months of their lives, they depend on their mother for milk. Both parents will then bring food to the youngsters back at the den. Pups, generally, emerge in June and over the summer their parents teach them how to hunt and find native fruit. Healthy island fox parents have a head start in raising healthy pups.

You can help keep island foxes healthy and safe. 

This year the need for radio-tracking collars is greater than ever.

On each island 50–60 island foxes wear radio-tracking collars. Each year 30% to 50% of the collars need to be replaced or refurbished.

 

In 2019, Friends of the Island Fox is trying to fund:

• Over 30 refurbished radio collars - $220 each
• And 10 new radio collars - $350 each

island fox is vaccinated during health check

These radio collars will be assigned to island foxes this summer and fall during annual counting and health checks. A radio-tracking collar monitors an island fox's movements and signals to biologists when an island fox has died. Radio-tracking collars provide the first alert that disease, parasites, or unexpected predators have killed an island fox.

The sooner biologists can respond to a new threat, the more island foxes can be protected.

Friends of the Island Fox is also helping to fund important investigations into new health threats facing island foxes:

• Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses
• intestinal parasites that are causing island fox deaths
• diseases introduced to the islands by people, pets, and transported wildlife

photo courtesy of Inge Rose

Foxes need your help with science-based solutions.

• $25 tests a tick sample for 5 diseases
• $50 checks two blood samples
• $100 analyzes diet from 10 whisker samples
• $220 refurbishes a used radio collar
• $350 funds a new radio collar

Island foxes need all of us to help assure the pups of 2019 grow up in a healthy island fox community.

Please DONATE today