On Feb. 12, after more than a decade of successful recovery efforts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a statement that it wants to remove the Channel Islands fox from the endangered species list.
Four of the six subspecies of the fox were added to the list in March 2004 following years of population decline due to predators such as golden eagles and a canine distemper virus.
According to the FWS, part of the recovery plan included relocating non-native golden eagles from the Northern Channel Islands and vaccinating the fox against canine distemper.
However, the potential for a disease outbreak still threatens the fox, according to the FWS.
The proposal for removing the fox from the endangered species list was published in the Federal Register on Feb. 16.
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2016.
