Camera captures tiny kit foxes romping at Carrizo Plain. See the video
Hours past midnight, a family of curious foxes scurried about on the Carrizo Plain.
A trail camera captured a group of San Joaquin kit foxes at their den site at the national monument in San Luis Obispo County, the Bureau of Land Management said in an April 16 Facebook post.
The video, captured just after 2 a.m. on March 21, shows the little foxes scampering about, peering behind shrubbery and boulders, their eyes glowing in the darkness.
A smaller group dashes out of sight, and two stragglers soon follow.
“These rare and iconic creatures are among the smallest foxes in North America, making moments like these both special and significant,” the agency said.
Given the area’s projections, seeing San Joaquin kit foxes in the area “isn’t uncommon,” Philip Oviatt, public affairs officer with the Bureau of Land Management Central California District, said in an April 17 phone interview with McClatchy News.
But seeing the group right by the Goodwin Education Center, he said, was “pretty amazing.”
“They are thriving out there because of all the conservation efforts,” Oviatt said.
What to know about San Joaquin kit foxes
The species averages 20 inches in length with a 12-inch-long tail, the Center for Biological Diversity said.
Adult males weigh about 5 pounds, while females average about 4.6 pounds, the nonprofit said.
“Pups are born in February or early March, and after four to five months will start to forage by themselves and seek mates and vacant home ranges,” the center said.
The “slender mammals” can live up to seven years in the wild and up to 12 years in captivity, the nonprofit said.
The kit fox, “endemic to California,” once wandered the “grassland, scrubland, and wetland communities in the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent habitat,” the nonprofit said.
Now, however, they’ve resorted to “living in and near agricultural and urban areas,” the center said.
“The Carrizo Plain supports one of the largest remaining populations of San Joaquin kit fox and provides critical habitat corridors,” according to the Carrizo Plain Conservancy.
The San Joaquin kit fox was listed as endangered in 1967, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Threats to the species include loss of habitat, disease, wildfire and “predation and competition from coyotes, red foxes and domestic dogs,” the agency said.
