1 / 6 Channel Islands Fox

These tiny foxes endemic to Channel Islands National Park, a chain of islands off the coast of California, faced a “<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservation-dogs-new_n_577dfbf9e4b0344d514df92f">catastrophic</a>” decline in the late 1990s. Populations of the fox, which is no larger than a house cat, had plummeted more than 90 percent on four of the six islands. On Santa Cruz Island, where 1,400 foxes had once lived, fewer than 55 remained. The population on Santa Rosa Island had dropped from 1,780 to just 15.<br><br>Golden eagles were the primary threat facing the small mammals, scientists said. The birds were not native to the islands and had only started frequenting the area in the 1990s after use of <a href="https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/fox-decline.htm" target="_blank">the pesticide DDT</a> wiped out the larger, native bald eagles.<br><br>“Golden eagle predation was unprecedented, and was considered unnatural because golden eagles had not previously bred on the islands and were, until this time, rarely observed,” the National Park Service explained on its website. “With the golden eagle’s sharp talons, swiftness of flight, and four times the body mass of a fox, they easily preyed upon the vulnerable fox.”<br><br>The imperiled creature was added to the endangered species list in 2004 -- a move that sparked an enormous, concerted effort to save the animal from the brink.<br><br>Empowered and galvanized by the <a href="http://www.defenders.org/endangered-species-act/endangered-species-act" target="_blank">Endangered Species Act</a>, at least 300 scientists and conservation experts, nonprofit organizations, and state and federal agencies joined forces to initiate conservation measures, including captive breeding and golden eagle relocation programs. The hard work ultimately paid off.<br><br>The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in December that fox populations on the islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz had “<a href="http://now.howstuffworks.com/2016/08/23/island-fox-species-removed-endangered-list" target="_blank">fully recovered</a>,” while the fourth subspecies under threat, the Santa Catalina Island fox, had been “downlisted from endangered to threatened.” <br><br>“It’s remarkable to think that in 2004, these foxes were given a 50 percent chance of going extinct in the next decade. Yet here we are today, declaring three of the four subspecies recovered and the fourth on its way,” former Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe <a href="https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=interior-announces-fastest-successful-recovery-of-an-endangered-species-&_ID=35767" target="_blank">said</a> in a statement. “That’s the power of the [Endangered Species Act] — not just to protect rare animals and plants on paper, but to drive focused conservation that gets dramatic results.”

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