Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 10, 2005



The Island Fox is a small fox that is native to six of the eight Channel Islands of California. It is the smallest fox species in the United States. There are six subspecies of the fox, each unique to the island it inhabits, reflecting its evolutionary history. The Island Fox shares the Urocyon genus with the mainland Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), the fox from which it is descended. Its small size is a result of island dwarfing, a kind of allopatric speciation. Introduced diseases or parasites can decimate Island Fox populations. Because Island Foxes are isolated they have no immunity to parasites and diseases brought in from the mainland and are especially vulnerable to those domestic dogs may carry. In addition, Golden Eagle predation and human activities decimated fox numbers on several of the Channel Islands in the 1990s. Four Island Fox subspecies were federally protected as an endangered species in 2004, and efforts to rebuild fox populations and restore the ecosystems of the Channel Islands are being undertaken.

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