Identifying Individual Channel Island Foxes

Adult female on Santa Catalina Island

Individual island foxes look very similar. 

Males may be slightly larger than females, but it can be very difficult to tell them apart visually.

Unless an island fox has a specific scar or injury like the fox pictured here which is missing part of both ears, it can be very difficult to accurately identify individual animals.

An individual island fox's appearance also changes over its 8 -10 year lifespan. As an island fox ages it may change in weight, the fur texture may vary, but unlike domestic dogs there is little evidence of graying in coloration.

Adult male, named Bear, in 2008

Bear in 2013 showing signs of being an elderly island fox

In order to identify individual animals, island foxes are microchipped during their first health check. The microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and is injected with a syringe under the animal's skin.  Each microchip has a specific identification number that is read by a handheld electronic reader brushed just over the fur. Like the microchips used with domestic dogs and cats, this microchip will identify an individual island fox for its entire life.

Each time an island fox is captured during annual autumn counting, its location and health status are documented and recorded with their microchip identification number.

Microchips also help biologists in the field identify individual foxes that are to be vaccinated or who have been vaccinated in the past. On Catalina Island microchips play a role in identifying individual island foxes that have been treated for the ear mites that can cause cancer and help track the progression of cancer in individual animals.

Microchips play an important role in island fox conservation because they provide a way to identify an individual island fox throughout its life. You can help identify an island fox for life by sponsoring a $10 identification microchip.

Teacher Workshop with FIF and NatureBridge

 
Calling All Teachers!


The successful recovery of the endangered island fox is a positive story of people making a difference in the local environment. It is a story of interconnected species, cause and affect, scientific data, adaptations and genetic diversity.

Friends of the Island Fox is thrilled to team up with:



to offer a Teacher Professional Development workshop:

“Bridging Science and the Classroom”

The Nature of the Island Fox
Saturday, March 2, 2013

 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. 

at the Santa Barbara Zoo

Register for a fun-filled day of seeing and doing, including:

• Ready-to-use resources for the classroom
• Indoor and outdoor activities and lesson plans
• Exploration of environmental education pedagogies
• Presentation on NatureBridge and Friends of the Island Fox programming
• Light breakfast and Lunch provided
• Waived admission to the Santa Barbara Zoo

Cost: $15  (proceeds benefit island fox conservation)
Spaces are limited and preregistration is required. 
Go To NatureBridge to Register

 

NatureBridge is a nationally recognized leader, providing environmental education to 1 million K-12 youth and teachers since 1971. As a BONUS all participants will receive special discounts on future NatureBridge programs.

Have Questions? Contact:
Pat Meyer, Friends of the Island Fox, at (805) 228-4123 or  pat@islandfox.org
 
Meg Jakubowski, NatureBridge, at  (818) 914-7660 ext 401 or mjakubowski@naturebridge.org    

Join FIF on a trip to see island foxes in the wild.

FIF Trip to Santa Cruz Island!

Join Friends of the Island Fox for:

photo courtesy of Jay Dyer

A Trip to Prisoner's Harbor

Santa Cruz Island

Saturday, April 6, 2013

SOLD OUT - (as of 3/7/13)

Michael Lawshe for FIF

That's right, this spring FIF educators are leading a day-long adventure to look for both the island fox AND the island scrub-jay.

As the population of Santa Cruz Island foxes reaches recovery it is possible to observe them at more locations across the island. Santa Cruz is also the only home of the rare island scrub-jay. With its newly restored wetland area, Prisoner's Harbor is one of the prime locations to encounter this unique bird as well as many other species. Wetland on a dry island.

On the trip over to Prisoner's Harbor (about 1 and a half hours) there is the possibility of seeing many marine species as well. 

bottlenose dolphin with calf

Biodiversity at Prisoner's Harbor
 
Tickets will be $65.00 per person. A percentage of the fee will go to support island fox recovery efforts. 

We will take the Island Packers boat from Ventura Harbor leaving at 8.00 AM and returning around 5 PM on Saturday April 6, 2013.  Check in will be required at 7:15 AM.

Reservations are limited and will be provided on a first come basis. To book reservations, please download the Reservation Booking Form (Click Here to download pdf)
SOLD OUT - (as of 3/7/13)

Send the completed form with your check, made payable to the "Friends of the Island Fox" to the address on the form.  Reservations will be taken in the order received, and no reservations can be accepted without payment.

At the time of booking you will receive further details of the trip, including: where to meet, what to pack, the suggested clothing and other items of interest. Note the photo to the right. Food items will need to be secured at all times. What to remember when visiting the island fox. 
 

Island Fox Populations Recovering

photo courtesy of Kim Michaels, KimMichaels.com

What is the current status of the endangered Channel Island fox? In 2012 the Channel Island fox is robustly heading toward population recovery! Across all islands 90% of the population is surviving on an annual basis.

Every June biologists working with the endangered Channel Island fox come together to share information and update each other on the island foxes populating their island. June Meeting

The general consensus is that endangered populations on San Miguel, Santa Cruz and Santa Catalina Islands are all headed toward or reaching levels of recovery. (Habitat) The Santa Rosa Island fox is now increasing in number, but still is at a much lower population number than before the predation crisis caused by golden eagles and habitat destruction.

Island foxes are counted annually across the California Channel Islands in the late summer and early fall.  Animals are captured in safe traps so they can be given health checks, fitted with radio collars and given vaccinations. Friends of the Island Fox financially supports these conservation efforts.

In 2012 FIF financially supported 14 radio monitoring collars and provided funding for vaccinations against the distemper virus for 450 island foxes.

The official population estimates from 2011 are:

• San Miguel Island - 581 (up from 15 individuals in 2000)
• Santa Rosa Island - 449 (up from 15 individuals in 2000)
• Santa Cruz Island - 1302 (up from ~80 in 2000)
• Santa Catalina Island - 1542 (up from ~103 in 2000)
• San Nicolas Island - ~500
• San Clemente Island - 795

numbers represent the Santa Rosa Island population (pink line)

The recovery of the endangered Channel Island fox is one of the fasted recoveries of an endangered species in North American history. The populations on San Miguel and Santa Catalina Islands have surpassed historically recorded numbers and this year the slight drop in population on Santa Cruz Island was seen as a stabilization of a population that has reached the island’s carrying capacity.

This year the Island Fox Working Group discussed the process for delisting the island fox from the Endangered Species List. Continued monitoring to assure the populations are stable is vital to this process. You can play an important role by helping support island fox monitoring.

Education and the Channel Island Fox

photo courtesy of Inge Rose

You can’t care about an animal and its ecosystem if you don’t know about it.

This year Friends of the Island Fox programs reached:

• Over 1,200 students in classrooms across Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.
• Our volunteers provided “Fox Talk” presentations to over 1,500 children and adults in community groups, nature centers, state parks and at Channel Islands National Park.

More about FIF programs

Understanding the importance of this small little fox as a keystone predator on the islands has inspired students and people across the country to help fund island fox conservation.

• Fox Ambassador Schools
• El Segundo Ladies Golf Club
• Fort Collins, CO Foxes Baseball Club

Education is one of our primary goals and your donations to Friends of the Island Fox make it possible for us to provide education programs.

Each classroom offers the opportunity to teach our next generation about the native plants and animals that are their neighbors. Local wildlife depends on human neighbors that respect and value the environment. 

FIF also grew its participation in continuing adult education through our relationship with Road Scholar. Our programs on the Channel Island fox have become an important part of Road Scholar’s adventures to Coastal California and Channel Islands National Park. http://www.roadscholar.org
 

photo courtesy of Paul Bronstein

This holiday you can give the gift of education by supporting Friends of the Island Fox in someone’s honor.

The Channel Island Fox and People

Island foxes have a long history with people.  We don't know for sure how island foxes first arrived on the Channel Islands. There are two basic theories:

1. Gray foxes were stranded on the northern islands during the ice age when water levels were lower and the distance from the mainland to the islands was approximately four miles. The water level was low enough that San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Anacapa were one big island. Other animals like mammoths swam over to the island and lived there as well. Over thousands of years both the island fox and the mammoth adapted to smaller territory and less resources on the islands and became dwarf in size.
2. Native Americans transported mainland gray foxes out to the islands and over a few thousand years the species evolved to be the island fox.

There is very little fossil evidence of foxes on the islands. Scientists are currently evaluating 6,000-year-old-fossil fox bones found on the northern islands to determine if they are island fox bones or bones of the ancestral gray fox. If the DNA shows the remains belonged to an island fox then it is more likely that this island species was on the Channel Islands before humans arrived in North America.

For at least several thousand years, island foxes interacted with the island communities of Chumash people. On Santa Cruz Island, Chumash villages existed in the areas of both Scorpion Anchorage and Prisoner’s Harbor. Over time, these native people transported island foxes to the southern islands of Santa Catalina, San Clemente and San Nicolas.

The island fox was not a pet, it was a wild animal that lived side-by-side with the native people. Images of island foxes appear in rock art on Santa Catalina Island and archeologists have found ancient ceremonial burials of island foxes in several locations.

Island foxes lived on San Nicolas Island with the Lone Woman whose story was told in the novel “Island of the Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell. The facts of this classic story of survival are gradually coming to light. Archeologists have recently found the cave on this treeless, windswept island where the woman found shelter. L.A. Times article

treeless San Nicolas Island, one of the California Channel Islands

As more artifacts are uncovered, we may finally know who this woman was and what interactions she had with animals, like the island fox, that shared the island with her.

Today, campers and day visitors are interacting with the island fox. When you stop and watch an island fox, you are a time traveler seeing what native people saw thousands of years ago.

400 Endangered Island Foxes Protected

photo courtesy of Melissa Baffa

These two island fox pups born on the Channel Islands this year have a glowing future because their human neighbors care about protecting them.

Friends of the Island Fox is thrilled to announce that the Fresno Chaffee Zoo has awarded us a Conservation Grant of $2,000 to vaccinate 200 endangered Channel Island foxes against canine distemper.

This is a doubly rewarding acknowledgement because:

1. These matching funds combine with private donations raised this summer to meet our goal of $4,000 to vaccinate 100 endangered island foxes against canine distemper on FOUR islands.
2. This is also the sixth year that the Fresno Chaffee Zoo has supported conservation efforts on behalf of the endangered Channel Island fox. In previous years they have funded radio tracking collars on individual island foxes.

It is heartening when a local California zoo sees the importance of supporting conservation of a local endangered species. The Fresno Chaffee Zoo has been a strong partner in helping to save the endangered island fox and we thank them for recognizing the continued success of island fox recovery depends on proactive vaccination against disease.

Thank you to everyone who supported our canine distemper vaccination drive this summer.

You helped protect 400 Channel Island foxes from canine distemper in 2012 !

Coastal Clean-up Day 2012 and the Island Fox

You don't have to travel to the Channel Islands to help the endangered Channel Island fox. Kelp forests surrounding the islands provide important habitat for fish and other sea life. Birds and marine mammals depend on these resources, and indirectly so does the island fox.

From our local beach to the islands, trash harms animals and people. You can make a difference.

Friends of the Island Fox and 

the Channel Islands Park Foundation 

invite you to join us on the beach 

for Coastal Clean-up Day

Saturday, Sept. 15 from 9 AM to Noon 

 Meet at Channel Islands National Park Visitor Center

Keeping the local marine habitat debris free is vital to creatures of all shapes and sizes. Island fox and the fishing hook.

We live beside a thriving marine community. You can help keep it that way for island foxes and bald eagles, dolphins and whales, yourself and your family.

Special thanks to photographer Jessica Martinoff for her photos taken on the Friends of the Island Fox Trip to Santa Cruz Island.

Foxy Ladies Help Island Foxes

Why is that Channel Island fox in a cage?

Each year in late summer / early autumn, island foxes are caught in safe capture cages so that their numbers can be counted. This also allows the biologists on the six islands, where the island foxes live, to check the health of individual foxes, replace old radio tracking collars and to vaccinate the island foxes against disease.

Canine distemper virus and rabies pose a serious threat to the endangered Channel Island fox. Distemper virus nearly caused the extinction of the Santa Catalina Island fox between 1994 and 2000. The population crashed from 1,342 individuals to 165.

The four endangered subspecies of island foxes on San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Santa Catalina Islands are successfully recovering and the job of protecting them from disease is a priority. Island foxes have territories that overlap. Recent studies modeling how distemper travels through island fox populations conclude that the best way to protect a viable percentage of island foxes in the event of distemper introduction is to vaccinate a minimum of 100 individuals. And since the vaccine’s protection against the disease only lasts one year, a minimum of 100 island foxes need to be vaccinated on each island annually.

This year Friends of the Island Fox set a goal of raising $2,000 to fund canine distemper vaccinations for 100 foxes on two of the four islands where they are an endangered species. ($10 vaccinates an island fox against canine distemper)

Rita Mays (left) and some of the El Segundo Ladies Golf Club's Foxy Ladies

In August 2012 The Foxy Ladies, the women of the El Segundo Ladies Golf Club, took a big swing at our goal. They held a Golf Tournament to raise funds for island fox vaccinations and they raised $1,600!

Thanks to Rita Mays, the tournament organizer, and her golf-playing Foxy Ladies, 160 island foxes will be protected from canine distemper this year.

From golf tournaments to baseball games, to island trips, to lifelong learning programs for Road Scholar, our summer drive has surpassed our goal!

You helped us raise $2,960 for vaccinations ! 

Every $10 raised helps to protect an endangered island fox from this very contagious disease. This will protect 296 foxes. 

Can we make it 400? 

A 100 island foxes vaccinated on four islands? You can help make a difference by donating too.

Annual trapping is happening across the Channel Islands. Follow the story of island foxes Tani and Tiptu, and their pup Meymey, on Twitter and Facebook as they experience fall trapping and health checks.

Santa Cruz Island Wetland

Look closely for the small pond in front of the dead tree.

Can there be a wetland on a dry island? Yes.

Santa Cruz Island is the largest of the Southern California Channel Islands. The eastern side of the island is composed of porous volcanic rock. Rain water peculates through the rock and comes to the surface as springs in a few areas. One of these areas is at Prisoner's Harbor.

In the past couple of years the wetland at Prisoner's Harbor has been going through restoration. Landfill was removed so the springs were once again able to reach the surface and therefore become a resting spot for migratory birds. A dead tree or snag was left in place as a perching area. The rare island scrub-jay, insect eating black phoebes and a variety of birds are using this natural perch.

This spring native willows, grasses and even oaks were carefully planted. Brightly colored flags, mark the different vegetation areas that are delineated by elevation. Small variation in elevation means differing amounts of freshwater. 

Looking across the restored wetland toward the sea.

Wetlands are rapidly disappearing along the California coast. The restoration of this wetland helps not only the endangered island fox on Santa Cruz Island, but a wide range of species on this island.

This is the area of Santa Cruz Island where our facebook and Twitter island fox family lives along side an island scrub-jay family. Follow their adventures on-line or in the black box on the right edge of this page.