The Thief

To the Island Fox who stole my sock,

It must have smelled quite nice, that ripe three-days-worn sock odor. Nice enough to entice you to run off with it in your little fox teeth, I guess. Now, dear fox, this means nothing to you but that was my last pair of new socks. I bought two pairs of SmartWool socks to come out to the island because my old socks are crusty and worn. The first new pair—the best pair—was separated by a bucket of hot coals. I kept the non-burnt one. And now, you have pilfered one of my other pair. This wouldn’t be an issue if they were the same socks, but no, they were quite different. One pair was thick, cushiony, and oh-so-soft. The other pair was thinner and coarser. Mixing-and-matching these socks does not feel good on my feet.

So, little fox, I shake my fist at you for your thievery, but you are just so darn cute and endangered I just can’t hold it against you for long.

Love,

Nora

P.S. Fox, Michelle does not appreciate the stinky mark you left on her nest pole. 

Santa Cruz Island Fox, about the size of a house cat.

The Santa Cruz Island Fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae) is a subspecies of Island Fox endemic to Santa Cruz Island, just like the Island Scrub-jay. This furry critter is the largest mammal native to SCI, though it is one-third smaller than its mainland counterpart, the Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). The Island Fox is thought to have become isolated on the Channel Islands over 10,000 years ago and has evolved into a unique species. There are six subspecies of Island Fox, each unique to a different island within the Channel Island chain.

In the 1990s, the Santa Cruz subspecies fell victim to a human-caused ecological unbalance brought on by non-native species introduced to the island during the ranching era and the decline of Bald Eagles due to DDT. Introduced feral pigs and ranched sheep attracted Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) who took over the niche of the native declining, DDT-affected, fish-eating population of Bald Eagles (Haliateetus leucocephalus). The Golden Eagles preyed on the foxes as well as the wild piglets that first attracted them. The population of foxes plunged from approximately 1,500 individuals to fewer than 100. This ~90% population decline greatly reduced the effective population size, and therefore the genetic variation, of the species. Recovery from such an event seems futile, but the foxes have made quite a comeback. The restoration plan removed and re-located the Golden Eagles, reintroduced a population of Bald Eagles, eradicated the feral pigs (which caused quite a stir that I will discuss in a further entry), and captive-bred foxes. Currently, there are somewhere around 800 foxes on SCI.

When I arrived on the Island, I saw an Island Fox within an hour. In fact, I saw two or three. I see multiple foxes every day. Ten years ago, I would have been lucky to see a fox a week. I feel fortunate to get to observe this unique species while it is on the upswing. My favorite observation so far has been in the early morning after a rainy night—all the earthworms were wriggling on the muddy road surface and I had to tiptoe carefully around them all. I turned a corner and there was a fox trundling down the road towards me, head down, it’s nose less than an inch from the ground. It was weaving back and forth eating as many worms as it could find. It was so preoccupied that it didn’t even notice me until we were only 10 meters apart. It finally looked up, pricked its ears up, sniffed, and scampered away like an excited puppy. 

NOTE:

It turns out my fox count was off--there are approximately 800-900 sexually mature adult foxes on the island and up to 1300 total (this means almost a third of the foxes are less than 10 months old--the age when they reach sexual maturity).