You Can Help Island Foxes with Radio Collars

These island fox radio collars have gone to the shop to be refurbished. They have been chewed on, rubbed on rocks, and used as teething bars by island fox pups. But, with your help these collars can be repaired and used to help island foxes, again.

Radio-tracking collars protect whole islands of island foxes.

Radio-tracking collars can also be used for specific situations:

• helping to reunite a lost pup with its parents
• following an island fox rehabilitating from wildfire injuries
• monitoring an island fox recovering from a serious injury

Which foxes wear radio-tracking collars?
 
Soon the radio collars above will be renewed and ready for the field. Before they can start making a difference, Friends of the Island Fox needs to pay for them. 

Refurbishing these 20 radio collars costs over $4,000

Your donation can help put these radio collars back on a wild island fox. 

Please DONATE TODAY 

to help monitor island foxes all year long.

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

FIF Helps Meet Urgent Need For Channel Island Foxes

At the Island Fox Conservation Working Group meeting on June 16th, we learned of a serious threat looming over Channel Island foxes. The Canine Distemper virus (CDV) is highly contagious and deadly to these small canines. It nearly caused the Catalina Island fox's extinction in 1999.

Since that emergency, Channel Island foxes have been vaccinated for CDV with a specific vaccine designed for ferrets. Unfortunately, the vaccine has not been produced for two years. Island land managers have only been able to use vaccine they had on hand, leaving the majority of island foxes unprotected for the last two years.

A new CDV vaccine has recently become available, however it is unclear whether it will be effective for island foxes. There is great urgency to test the new vaccine before fall counting and health check season. This is the only time when a large number of island foxes are handled by biologists on all islands.

Safe capture cages allow island foxes to be captured for health checks

island fox radio-tracking collars

As part of an emergency effort to verify the effectiveness of the new CDV vaccination, five island foxes will be tested on each island. Each of these individuals, which have never been vaccinated for distemper before, will be caught, blood tested, vaccinated with the new vaccine, radio-collared, and released. 

These radio-collared individuals will be caught again a month later and their blood will be tested to verify that they have built-up antibodies against the disease. ID microchips and records on each animal enable biologists to know which island foxes can participate in this test.

This is an extra unexpected cost for each island. Friends of the Island Fox committed to quickly fund:

FIVE radio-tracking collars for Santa Rosa Island ($1,500) 

FIF Santa Cruz Island Trip 2015

Thanks to the participants on our Santa Cruz Island Trip and generous private donors, we have provided these important funds. 
 
The vaccine is currently being tested across the islands. If the new CDV vaccine provides protection to Channel Island foxes, we may be raising money for vaccinations to protect as many individuals as possible this fall.

Your support helped us to pledge this important financial commitment. Thank You to all of our conservation supporters.