MEDN Island Fox Monitoring

Little, Annie; Baker, Stacy; Schamel, Juliann

Island foxes are the largest mammal and largest terrestrial predator on the Channel Islands. As the apex predators of the islands, they play a key role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem and are an indicator of the status of lower levels of the food chain. Park(s): CHIS Protocol Objectives: Determine Island fox density, population size, and cause-specific survival rates. Science Impact: Long-term monitoring was indispensable to both identifying that the species was in decline and to the successful recovery effort in response to that decline. The species would likely be extinct had there been no monitoring program. Nexus with Park Management: Annual monitoring to estimate mortality rates and population density are essential to NPS consultation with USFWS under the Endangered Species Act. Under agreements with the USFWS Recovery Team, CHIS is required to track island fox recovery and population viability on an annual basis. Protocol: 1988 Terrestrial Vertebrates Monitoring Handbook, Channel Islands National Park, was revised for island fox in 1993 (described in Schwemm 1994). A comprehensive framework for monitoring foxes on five islands was developed by Rubin et al. (2007); however, not all recommendations were implemented due to financial and staffing constraints.

MEDN Island Fox Monitoring

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