By Karen Povey, WNPF Board of Directors
Photos courtesy of the National Park Service
With its twitching nose, dainty trot, and appealing expression, a more charming creature than the Cascade Red Fox is hard to imagine. But its charisma, coupled with that famous foxy cleverness, has led to trouble for this adorable mountain mammal.
At Mount Rainier National Park, these usually skittish animals have become increasingly habituated to people, connecting humans with handouts as they hang out along roads and in parking lots. The fox’s endearing nature proves irresistible to many visitors who are wooed into flinging them food and view them as park personalities, even posting their portraits on social media. But this celebrity status belies the Cascade fox’s true significance as one of the rarest creatures in Washington and has proven to be a headache for wildlife managers tasked with protecting the foxes.
The Cascade Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes cascadensis) is a subspecies of red fox that once roamed the subalpine meadows and mountain forests of the entire Cascades chain, extending into Canada. Unlike the introduced lowland red foxes found in other parts of the state, these foxes are native to Washington and are found nowhere else in the world.
Possessing a unique genetic makeup, Cascade Red Foxes are thought to have been isolated from their lowland cousins for hundreds of thousands of years and from other mountain foxes of the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada for 15,000 years.
Although a small number of Cascade foxes have been documented in the North Cascades, they are now concentrated in the southern Cascades and have had limited ability to disperse beyond the barrier posed by Interstate 90. (Hopefully the highway’s new overcrossings will help make their travels safer.) Research indicates that there may be a breeding population of just under twenty widely scattered individuals.
Their shrinking range and decreasing numbers are cause for concern to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and National Park Service biologists. In fact, the WDFW has just released their Draft Status Report for the Cascade Red Fox providing an overview of research findings and a recommendation to list the Cascade Red Fox as a Washington State Threatened Species.
Biologists at Mount Rainier and North Cascades National Parks have been partnering with WDFW and the Cascades Carnivore Project to study Cascade Red Foxes and uncover the reasons for their decline.
This work has received ongoing support from Washington’s National Park Fund donors and is the focus of this year’s Rare Carnivore Research priority project. By donating to this project, you can help park scientists gain critical information and engage community science volunteers to protect and recover Cascade Red Fox populations.
Cascades Carnivore Project film on their research partnership with Mount Rainier National Park:
In a 2020 WNPF Virtual Field Trip, Mount Rainier National Park Ecologist Tara Chestnut shared concerns about the challenges facing Cascade foxes, such as the impacts of climate change.
As temperatures warm, the mountain meadows that serve as vole-filled feeding grounds for foxes are being encroached on by conifers, changing the composition of prey. Increasing periods of rainfall during the winter causes snow to compact, allowing coyotes and bobcats better access to the subalpine zones where foxes once ruled without competition. Right now it’s unclear how these threats affect the foxes, making more studies critical.
One well-documented threat is the level of interaction between people and foxes. The foxes’ penchant for handouts and hanging out on roadsides and in parking lots leaves them vulnerable to roadkill and disease transmission from dogs. Forceful anti-fox-feeding messaging and hazing of problem animals has helped, but not solved the problem.
This NPS Storymap shows the movements of radio-collared foxes as they roam near high visitor activity areas:
The best thing you can do to help keep Cascade Red Foxes safe is to never feed them or any other wildlife. You may feel you are helping when you toss them a treat, but a fox that’s fed can easily end up dead.
By supporting Washington’s National Park Fund Science and Research projects you help biologists protect foxes and other wildlife in our parks.
And if you like to hike and are willing to pick up poop for lab analysis, you can join the team of community scientists led by the Cascades Carnivore Project who monitor the distribution of foxes throughout the Cascades.
However you choose to help, you can be assured that your efforts will make a difference for ensuring a future for this uniquely Washington wildlife species.