Rare Sierra Nevada Red Fox Caught on Camera in Yosemite National Park in 2015

Summary: A rare Sierra Nevada red fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) trips motion-sensitive cameras in Yosemite National Park in December 2014 and January 2015.

Sierra Nevada red fox in Yosemite on Dec. 13, 2014 at 2:54 p.m.; day's temperature 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minues 0.5 degrees Celsius): NPS, Public Domain, via Yosemite Park News

The rare Sierra Nevada red fox (Vulpes vulpes necator) unknowingly posed on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2014, and again on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015, for remote motion-sensitive cameras deployed in Yosemite National Park's back country by the park's carnivore crew.

The exciting detection was discovered during a five-day back country reconnaissance by National Park Service wildlife biologists. The images comprise the first confirmed sighting of the rare North American mammal in almost a century in Yosemite, the spectacular wilderness sprawling for 747,956 acres (almost 1,200 square miles or 3,026.87 square kilometers) across central eastern California.

Until the fox's sighting in Yosemite in January 2015, the nearest detection occurred north of Yosemite in the Sonora Pass, the second-highest highway pass, at an elevation of 9,624 feet (2,933 meters), in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. A small population of Sierra Nevada red foxes, discovered by the U.S. Forest Service in 2010, is being monitored there by a consortium of biologists from California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and University of California-Davis (UCD).

Other small populations presently are confirmed as inhabiting Crater Lake in south central Oregon; Lassen Peak in Northern California's Shasta Cascade region; and Mount Hood in northern Oregon's Cascade Volcanic Arc.

closeup of Sierra Nevada red fox: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

The Sierra Nevada red fox also is commonly known as the High Sierra fox because of its limited geographical range, restricted to elevations over 4,500 feet (1,371.6 meters). The New World native, one of 10 North American subspecies of red fox, has a historical range in alpine and subalpine habitats, from the southern Cascade Mountains of California and Oregon southward to the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.

American ethnographer and naturalist Clinton Hart Merriam (Dec. 5, 1855-March 19, 1942), who was one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society in 1888, is credited with the official description of the Sierra Nevada red fox. Merriam made his description in 1900 from a specimen collected in Whitney Meadows, at 9,500 feet (2,895.6 meters), on Mount Whitney, the highest summit, with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 meters), in the Sierra Nevada.

A crepuscular (twilight) and nocturnal predator, the Sierra Nevada red fox favors an opportunistic diet that is omnivorous -- although preferentially carnivorous -- according to seasonal food availability. Small mammals, such as ground squirrels (Spermophilus), mice (Peromyscus), and voles (Microtus), are favored prey. Birds, such as mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) and hairy woodpeckers (Picoides villosus), as well as mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) carrion and pinemat manzanita (Arctostaphylos nevadensis) berries, represent food sources in the scarce seasons of autumn, winter, and spring.

In the first decade of the 21st century, the ever-dwindling population of Sierra Nevada red foxes is estimated to range from less than 20 to no more than 50. On April 27, 2011, the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, and founded in 1989 for the protection of endangered species, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for endangerment designation for the Sierra Nevada red fox under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. On Dec. 30, 2011, the USFWS announced commencement of a status review as part of the lengthy process entailed in determining species endangerment.

The appearance of the Sierra Nevada red fox in Yosemite National Park, captured via a motion-sensitive camera, gives hope that the tranquil grandeur of the High Sierra may serve as a viable shelter for saving this small, soft-furred fox from extinction.

Sierra Nevada red fox on a path: USFWS Pacific Southwest Region, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Sierra Nevada red fox: Yosemite National Park, Public Domain, via National Park Service @ http://www.nps.gov/yose/parknews/rare-sierra-nevada-red-fox-spotted-in-yosemite-national-park.htm

Rare Sierra Nevada red fox on September 12, 2010: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/6191910949/

Sierra Nevada red fox on a path: USFWS Pacific Southwest Region, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_pacificsw/6602098681/

For further information:

Center for Biological Diversity. Petition to List Sierra Nevada Red Fox (Vulpus vulpus necator) as a Threatened or Endangered species and to Designate Critical Habitat Concurrent with Listing. April 27, 2011.
Available at http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Sierra_Nevada_red_fox/pdfs/SNRF_PETITION.pdf

Laws, John Muir. Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada. San Francisco CA: California Academy of Sciences; Berkeley CA: Heyday Books, 2007.