(light and bouncy orchestral string music)
- [Narrator] About the size of a house cat,
this wily little creature
is the smallest fox found in the U.S.
But even at five pounds, they are the largest land mammal
on the Channel Islands off the coast of California.
This is the island fox.
Island foxes are descendants of mainland gray foxes,
but have grown smaller over thousands of years
to adapt to the limited resources of their island homes.
In recent years,
a chain of events caused these little foxes
to be federally listed as endangered.
Bald eagles once lived harmoniously with the island fox,
never considering them as food.
But then,
the less forgiving golden eagles arrived
in the Channel Islands,
and began preying upon the island fox,
hunting them to near extinction.
But through a recovery program,
the golden eagles were relocated
and the island fox population is on the rise again.
This is the island fox.