{"id":19066,"date":"2017-01-05T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=19066"},"modified":"2017-01-07T12:08:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T17:08:46","slug":"little-endangered-fox-found-sanctuary-california-oil-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2017\/01\/05\/little-endangered-fox-found-sanctuary-california-oil-town\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Little Endangered Fox Found Sanctuary in a California Oil Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I were to ask you where I could find a healthy population of the endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox, you might be forgiven for not immediately saying, \u201cWhy,\u00a0Bakersfield, of course!\u201d Bakersfield? The Oil Capital of California? Yes, the very same!<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the big city is not such a bad place for an endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox to raise a family, or several.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

Unlikely as it seems, this oil-town-turned-city sprawling at the southern end of the Central Valley\u2014butt of bad jokes and dark fiction in Hollywood, and home to\u00a0nearly half a million people\u2014has also become a refuge for a growing population of San Joaquin Kit Foxes.<\/p>\n

This subspecies of the Kit Fox, found throughout the deserts of the American Southwest, is named after its native San Joaquin Valley home, which it has\u00a0mostly lost to farming and urban development over the last century. Its population declined so drastically that it became one of the first species to be officially listed\u00a0as Endangered by the federal government in 1967. Its cousin, the Southern California Kit Fox went extinct in 1903, and the San Joaquin Kit Fox has been pushed\u00a0to the outer margins as humans have transformed the Central Valley into the agricultural engine of California. This little canid has seemed like a permanent member of\u00a0the endangered species list through nearly half a century.<\/p>\n

Bakersfield Kit Fox. Photo: Tory Westall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to losing habitat, the subspecies also suffered from changes in populations of other carnivores in California: the big bad Wolf was extirpated from\u00a0the region, allowing the smaller Coyote and Bobcat populations to grow; this has been bad news for the Kit Fox, as both these mid-sized predators prey on the smaller Kit Fox; the\u00a0introduction of non-native Red Foxes has also meant greater competition for already diminishing habitat. The case of the San Joaquin Kit Fox has seemed like a classic case of a species being sucked into an\u00a0extinction vortex by the forces of direct and indirect human impacts. But surely, the most visibly extreme way humans destroy native habitats is by building cities.\u00a0So, how does a little kit fox manage to live and, indeed, thrive in the middle of this urban sprawl?<\/p>\n

By the late 1990s, wildlife biologist Brian Cypher of the Endangered Species Recovery Program at California State University, Stanislaus, knew there were a\u00a0few foxes in Bakersfield, stragglers he thought, that had somehow managed not to die amid development. Watching them more closely, he started noticing that the\u00a0same individuals (with visible markers identifying them) were apparently holding down home ranges for long periods. He started noticing pups, which\u00a0meant these individuals were also reproducing. Were they establishing themselves in the city? Thus began Cypher\u2019s long-term research on these urban foxes, which continues to\u00a0surprise the veteran conservationist.<\/p>\n

Just like the humans who build cities, the kit foxes, it turns out, find urban habitats to be safer and more nourishing than the surrounding countryside. The\u00a0lack of large urban forest patches or wooded areas means that unlike their Chicago cousins, Bakersfield coyotes avoid the city; so do bobcats. The city also provides\u00a0an endless smorgasbord for a small omnivorous predator, ranging from junk food in garbage that people toss out to more nutritious dog and cat\u00a0food intentionally supplied by those who like having kit foxes around in their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

An adult Kit Fox in Bakersfield. Photo: Tory Westall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As it turns out, the big city is not such a bad place for an endangered kit fox to raise a family, or several. And they do just that, in abundance.\u00a0Cypher\u2019s research indicates that while only one in ten of the pups born in the countryside survive past the first year of life, over half of the urban pups survive in\u00a0Bakersfield. This drop in first-year mortality is one reason why the kit foxes are thriving in the city, with population densities much higher than outside it. While a\u00a0single pair may occupy two square miles of countryside, in Bakersfield, Cypher and his team have identified (using camera traps) more than 30 individuals living on\u00a0the local California State University campus alone. Across the city, he estimates there is a population of 400-500 kit foxes that is growing, making Bakersfield home to their\u00a03rd largest remaining population.<\/p>\n

Carnivores generally don\u2019t fare well at high densities. Island Foxes stuck in high densities on the Channel Islands, Cypher tells me, \u201clook always torn up,\u00a0like they are always fighting all the time\u201d. Mainland foxes prefer to keep their distance from each other, maintaining territories through scent marking, and\u00a0avoiding direct confrontation whenever possible. One might, therefore, \u201cexpect more aggression\u201d among Bakersfield\u2019s kit foxes. \u201cBut that is not the case here\u201d, says\u00a0Cypher. The urban kit foxes turn out to be \u201cquite docile, and not as fiercely territorial or aggressive\u201d toward each other. Instead, surprisingly, they seem to be\u00a0engaged in more cooperative behaviors, especially when it comes to raising pups.<\/p>\n

Kit Foxes born in the countryside tend to disperse from their parents to find their own territories within a year or two. While an older pup may\u00a0linger past the first year and help raise next year\u2019s brood, helpers at the den are rare. In the city, however, Cypher finds a lot more helpers, possibly because there is\u00a0a steady supply of food in a saturated real estate market with few open territories for young foxes to take over. Why not stick around at home, then, and help raise\u00a0younger siblings? However, urban kit foxes seem to be going beyond this increase in sociality, which is predicted by mathematical models of social behavior.\u00a0Cypher and his students have documented at least two cases where two females shared a single den, seemingly became pregnant at the same time, and successfully\u00a0raised their respective litters together in the same den. This level of cooperation is unprecedented in our knowledge of the natural history of Kit Foxes.<\/p>\n

A Bakersfield Kit Fox in 2015. Photo: Christine Van Horn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In collaboration with geneticists from the Smithsonian Institution, Cypher\u2019s team has discovered that the urban population of kit foxes shows high genetic\u00a0variation, at levels that may surprise conservation biologists. There is some connectivity of habitat near the eastern edge of town, closer to the foothills. Bakersfield\u00a0kit foxes, however, prefer to remain in town, and even exhibit some unique alleles, i.e., genetic mutations not found elsewhere, which may play some role in\u00a0explaining the novel traits seen in this urban population.<\/p>\n

There is a different downside to the higher density of foxes: the growing incidence of mange over the past three years. Caused by parasitic mites, this skin disease can,\u00a0if untreated, eventually kill kit foxes through secondary infection, hypothermia from loss of fur, dehydration, and starvation. Cypher is not sure where the kit foxes\u00a0are getting infected but suspects the mites may be coming from contact with domestic dogs. \u201cIt is unlikely to be coyotes infecting foxes,\u201d he says, because \u201cif a\u00a0coyote encounters a kit fox, the fox ends up dead!\u201d Domestic dogs are often protected from mange through monthly application of tick and flea prevention\u00a0medication. Researchers from UC Davis are collaborating with Cypher to determine if the mites on mangy kit foxes are genetically similar to ones found in dogs; if\u00a0so, the infection may be treatable using similar medication. They plan to test whether over-the-counter mange-preventive collars may also work to protect the kit foxes.<\/p>\n

Another potential threat is exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides in the city: accidental consumption has been associated with mange in Bobcats in\u00a0California. Cypher and colleagues have documented worrisome levels of these chemicals in urban kit foxes, with the anticoagulant rodenticides implicated in at\u00a0least several known deaths. Whether they also make kit foxes more vulnerable to mange remains to be seen. The recent ban on second generation anticoagulant\u00a0rodenticides may go some way in reducing this risk of urban life for the kit fox.<\/p>\n

On the whole, though, the kit foxes continue to thrive in the urban matrix, even serving as vanguards for new urban development. The threat of coyotes and\u00a0bobcats keeps kit foxes away from farmland, according to Cypher, \u201cexcept when the land is allowed to go fallow\u201d resulting in growth of shrubs that provide some\u00a0cover. Such fallow land at the edge of the city is often a precursor to urbanization, but the kit foxes \u201cdon\u2019t seem to get pushed out by development, except in really\u00a0high-density residential areas. School campuses, golf courses, even commercial areas\u2014anything not residential seems to have foxes in them\u201d, says Cypher. They\u00a0manage to find nooks and crannies within the sprawl to settle in, so that, counterintuitively, \u201cas development grows, so does the fox population!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bakersfield\u2019s kit foxes also thrive because people have grown from merely tolerating them to appreciating their presence in the city. Cypher is applying his\u00a0team\u2019s research to reconcile urban development with the conservation of this endangered native species by advocating for more thoughtful design of urban\u00a0landscapes. It is possible to develop the city for humans in ways that also provide the necessities of life for an urban kit fox family, and indeed other wildlife.\u00a0If the\u00a0domestic dog is our oldest friend, the San Joaquin Kit Fox may yet be our newest friend, giving us hope of surviving the current extinction crisis with at least some\u00a0of the native wildlife and wild landscapes folded into our brave new, human-built world.<\/p>\n

Madhusudan Katti<\/strong>
\nRaleigh<\/p>\n

On The Nature of Cities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I were to ask you where I could find a healthy population of the endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox, you might be forgiven for not immediately saying, \u201cWhy,\u00a0Bakersfield, of course!\u201d Bakersfield? The Oil Capital of California? Yes, the very same! Unlikely as it seems, this oil-town-turned-city sprawling at the southern end of the Central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":19103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,299,297],"tags":[401,55,84,42,53,41,29,100],"coauthors":[158],"class_list":["post-19066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-essay-place-and-design","category-essay-science-and-tools","tag-biodiversity","tag-conservation","tag-livability","tag-networks","tag-stewardship","tag-tools","tag-what-is-urban-nature","tag-wildlife-people-interactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19066"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}