Fox Foto Friday - The Endangered Species Act Saved This Fox

 Just over two years ago, the Channel Island fox was removed from the Endangered Species List.

The Endangered Species Act saved this fox!

 Survival shouldn't be political.

 

Saving a species is a very complicated task, and it requires a coalition of people all working together to make it happen. 

We shouldn't abandon the Endangered Species Act.
We should embolden it, embrace it, and help the world become a better place. 

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has provided the necessary protection and attention to help save four subspecies of Channel Island foxes from extinction.

Downloadable island-by-island report Island Fox Update 2018. 

Working Together To Save The Channel Island Fox 

Children Helping Island Foxes

Help for island foxes comes from many places. Recently Friends of the Island Fox received this wonderful letter from a concerned student.

Working with her school friends and family, Autumn raised $155 dollars to help island foxes. Her donation can: 

• test 15 island foxes for tick-borne disease (this is a new priority)
  
• provide 15 island foxes with an ID microchip
• support blood tests during island fox health checks
• help fund a radio-monitoring collar
• or contribute to a "Fox-Saver" trash bin that is needed on Catalina Island

No effort to help island foxes is too small. When we all work together, we can make big things happen. 

Autumn joins our growing group of Island Fox Ambassadors - she is helping tell the island fox's story to her community and working to keep island foxes healthy and safe into the future.

Yared raised funds and then traveled all the way from Virginia to visit the island fox.

Meet some other Island Fox Ambassadors:

• Tigran
• Carpinteria Family School
• More Island Fox Ambassador schools

At the Buckley School students had a huge bake sale and one student designed and sold a T-shirt. 

You can become an Island Fox Ambassador too. Individuals, classrooms, grades, even schools and organizations have become Island Fox Ambassadors.

Island Fox Ambassadors:

• raise awareness about the island fox
• they work on a service project to benefit island fox conservation
• they share their efforts with others

Service projects can raise funding, contribute to habitat restoration, or develop a conservation project to help island foxes and other wildlife (such as an effort to vaccinate local pets so they don't transmit disease to wildlife). 

Find out more about becoming an Island Fox Ambassador contact FIF at islandfoxnews@gmail.com

Make the Island Fox Your Sweetheart

This Valentine's Day

Won't you share your passion?

February through April, island fox pups will be born across the Channel Islands. Help give the 2018 pups the best chance of survival by supporting two important conservation projects.

Recycled radio-tracking collars: 
Good for foxes and the environment
Pups on San Miguel Island face serious challenges like drought and climate change. Young foxes are struggling to survive and adults are threatened by new parasites.

island fox with radio collar

You can help National Park biologists better protect the foxes by donating toward a radio-tracking collar. Radio collars help biologists respond quickly when foxes are in danger. By refurbishing previously used collars, we're also reducing costs for foxes and the environment. Each refurbished collar costs $220, a 33% savings over typical radio collar costs and keeps a used collar out of landfills.

This Valentine's Day, FIF has our hearts set on funding 15 radio collars!

Slow Down for Foxes!

Island foxes on Catalina face another serious danger: automobiles. One of the ways to alert drivers to the dangers of speeding in fox territory is through electronic signs that tell drivers they are going too fast. These signs have been shown to slow down traffic and reduce fox injuries and death.

A critical sign on Catalina needs replacing. For $3,000, we can repair the sign and put it back in service, saving more fox lives.

Two Ways to Share Your Passion

Donate Today

or by mail:
Friends of the Island Fox: 2390 C Las Posas Road, Suite #120, Camarillo CA 93010

Help create a better future for island foxes!

Meet an Island Fox Ambassador - Tigran Nahabedian

While Channel Island foxes have made a remarkable recovery from near extinction (US Fish and Wildlife Announces Recovery of Island Fox), they continue to be rare animals living in small island ecosystems. To survive into the future island foxes need all of us looking out for them.

Tigran Nahabedian has become an active Island Fox Ambassador, helping to spread information about the island fox and working to restore island habitat. Tigran, how did you get interested in the island fox?

Tigran Nahabedian and parents

photo courtesy of Kevin Schafer

I first met the Channel Island fox when I was 5 years old. I took an Island Packers boat to Santa Cruz Island; that will always be a special trip for me because it was on that trip I earned my first Junior Ranger Badge. Very soon after we arrived I saw an island fox resting among some old farming machinery. I thought he was so small and really cute. The island fox is my favorite animal in the National Parks.

The Channel Island fox lives on six of the eight California Islands and it is the only carnivore that occurs only in California and nowhere else. The island fox evolved from the grey fox, but it has fewer tail vertebrae, a shorter tail and is much smaller than the grey fox. They are significantly smaller than most house cats! 

The island fox subspecies on the Northern Channel Islands and Catalina are [currently] listed as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. (Why the island fox became endangered) ...This is the fastest recovery of a mammal under the Endangered Species Act, but it is not all good news because there has been a significant population decline on San Nicholas because of long term drought conditions and frail health of the foxes and the island vegetation.

Tigran and his mother showing an eagle radio transmitter to other children.

I got to help the island fox by working at a booth with the Friends of the Island Fox at the Santa Barbara Zoo for Channel Islands Fox Awareness Day. I spoke to almost 500 people about the fox. I answered questions about the island fox, the Channel Islands, Junior Ranger Badges, Buddy Bison and the eagles at the Channel Islands. This was really special to me because I was able to speak to many children about the fox and the Channel Islands. 

Very few of the children I spoke to have been to the Channel Islands so the zoo was a great place for them to connect to the island fox. If you are near Santa Barbara or coming for a visit you can meet Beau at the Santa Barbara Zoo, he was abandoned as a pup and the US Navy rescued him and brought him to the zoo. He is so cute!

 You can help the Channel Island fox too. You can write reports on the Channel Island fox for your school projects to raise awareness of the fox. You can also donate funds to help the Channel Island fox recovery. You could sell Valentine's Day grams, used books, have a bake sale or lemonade sale, wash cars or you could use some of your allowance from chores and donate the money at ciparkfoundation.org or islandfox.org. You can also visit the Santa Barbara Zoo, the Channel Islands National Park or another event put on by the Friends of the Island Fox and buy one of the really cool Friends of the Island Fox T-shirts. - TIGRAN

Friends of the Island Fox T-shirts come in adult sizes small - extra large and cost $15 + postage. For information on T-shirts contact Pat Meyer at pat@islandfox.org

Island Fox Ambassadors come in all sizes. 

Become an Island Fox Ambassador

Support for Channel Island Fox Conservation

Carpenteria Family School Island Fox Ambassadors

The successful recovery of  Channel Island foxes from near extinction has been supported by the efforts of a broad range of people. 

When we open the mail and find a letter like this, we take heart that island foxes and the natural world have a future.

It just takes determination and action to become an Island Fox Ambassador.

• Island Fox Ambassador schools
• El Segundo Ladies Golf Club
• Fort Collins, CO Foxes Baseball Club
• Fresno Chaffee Zoo conservation grant 

Every effort helps to support healthy populations of Channel Island foxes. How will you help in 2016?