Threatened red fox spotted on camera south of Yosemite
The sleek and tenacious Sierra Nevada red fox — once thought to have disappeared from the mountain range that bears its name — has been detected near the eastern boundary of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.
The discovery by scientists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife gives them hope that the population of the small carnivore could be expanding, or at least occupying a broader range than previously believed, increasing the fox’s chance of survival.
“It’s really exciting to find not only that they’re still here, but that they’re in many more places than we initially thought they were,” said Julia Lawson, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The state agency detected the creatures on four occasions with three survey cameras near Taboose Pass, east of the John Muir Trail, between 11,400 and 12,000 feet of elevation. The sightings happened between April and June of last year, extending the known range of the animals more than 100 miles south.
At 8 pounds, the fox is not much larger than a house cat. Its extraordinary hearing enables it to find small rodents, even when the prey is covered by a layer of snow. The fox’s coat ranges in color from red to granite, with fluffy fur once prized by trappers, who would sell the pelts to be made into coats and stoles.
Hunting and trapping of the creatures decimated the population to the point that scientists and conservationists believed for much of the 20th century that the species had been eliminated from the Sierra.