Four species of the California Channel Island fox, which was only added to the endangered list in 2004 are already ready to be delisted again according to scientists.
Each island in the California channel has a slightly different species of fox, as reported by the Houston Chronicle, but in the 1990s the population of foxes across the island chain had decreased by almost 95 percent. One of the main causes of the decrease in fox numbers was due to golden eagles who hunted the foxes, and disease. In 2004 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added them to their endangered list.
However, 10 years later, on both the Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands the number of foxes are nearing the healthy population number they had before the decline, while the fox population on San Miguel has exceeded their pre-decline number, according to the Santa Barbara Independent.
Though it will probably be years before the official delisting occurs, due to the need to wait for approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and monitoring of the species after that, Dave Garcelon, who works at the Institute for Wildlife Studies, notes that it is still important to try and get the foxes off the list.
“We need to show that the Endangered Species Act works when it does. We need to have some in the plus column.”” Garcelon stated according to the Santa Barbara Independent.