Well, apparently it doesn’t, because the South West SOAR group, the Nothin’ But G’z, seemed to encounter a lot of them on the Santa Cruz island in the Channel Islands National Park. They seemed to be everywhere and anywhere they could. Not to mention that they seemed to have the courage of a lion. So, it didn’t matter if you hissed at them, chased them away, swung sticks at them, or tried to catch them, they would just keep coming back without a single hit of fear, and even more sly and cunning ideas running round their minds about how to get to your food.
It didn’t matter what time of day it was, morning, midday, afternoon, evening, or even at night, you can always see 1 or 2 of these little guys slinking around the island’s campsites. They would even walk or trot their way up to you and try to steal some of your trail mix right out of the bowl next to you, as Laith Staffo found out one day while doing school work at the campsite. Another experience, one Andrew Berry and I both had, was when a fox just trotted his way across the campsite and right up to our feet and then passed on by to go and do whatever he or she was planning on doing. It was a very interesting experience considering how small they are.
These foxes aren’t that big, the island fox is about 12 to 13 inches in height and weighs only about 4 to 5 pounds. To put it simply, they’re about the size of a house cat. Their scientific name is Urocyon littoralis santacruzae and is in the Canine family, which means it’s related to dogs, wolves, and coyotes. They reason it has such a unique scientific name is because there are six different sub-species of Island fox, one for each of the Channel Islands. Island foxes have gray coloring on the back, rust coloring on the sides, and white underneath. The face has a distinctive black, white, and rufous-colored patterns.1
In the end, the entire experience with the foxes was really nice. They did manage to steal an empty can from the table once, but we were able to retrieve it from the fox. Plus, do to the sneakiness of the foxes I was put on fox patrol every night, me being the one on patrol because I have exceptional night vision and hearing, I could pinpoint the location of the 4 foxes that were in the trees waiting for a chance to try a grab for our food. The reason I’ve got good night vision is that I’m use to having to move about in the night without a flash light, my parents know this because they’ve caught me sneaking round the house at night a few times. This is also why I’ve got good hearing, after all, I’ve got to know when someone is starting to be woken up by my night’s excursions right? So, in the end I got put on fox watch during dinner, I got to wield a big stick I found as a deterrent to the foxes, and in the end we all had a lot of fun and excitement from our experiences with the foxes.
Bibliography
1 - The United States of America. National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Island Fox. National Park Service. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.
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