---
title: "Catalina's Foxes Came Back From the Brink. Now the Threat Is Cars."
description: "A canine disease nearly wiped the Catalina Island fox off the planet a quarter-century ago. Years of intensive conservation brought it roaring back. Today the leading killer of the island's signature animal isn't a virus — it's traffic."
category: "Los Angeles"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/los-angeles
author: "Simone Bishop"
published: 2026-06-29T01:38:33.000Z
updated: 2026-06-29T01:38:33.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/catalina-s-foxes-came-back-from-the-brink-now-the-threat-is-cars
tags: ["wildlife", "conservation", "Catalina Island", "island fox", "endangered species", "Southern California"]
---
# Catalina's Foxes Came Back From the Brink. Now the Threat Is Cars.

A canine disease nearly wiped the Catalina Island fox off the planet a quarter-century ago. Years of intensive conservation brought it roaring back. Today the leading killer of the island's signature animal isn't a virus — it's traffic.

About 22 miles off the Los Angeles coast lives a small, rust-and-gray fox found nowhere else on Earth — and one of California's most striking conservation comebacks.

## The collapse

The Santa Catalina Island fox, a subspecies of the island fox endemic to Catalina, was nearly lost in a single catastrophe. In 1998, canine distemper — believed to have arrived with a mainland dog or a stowaway raccoon — tore through the population. Within about two years, the number of foxes plunged from well over a thousand to roughly 100, a loss of close to 90 percent, [as documented by the National Park Service](https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/island-fox.htm) and other researchers. The animal that had served as Catalina's unofficial mascot was suddenly a candidate for extinction.

## The comeback

The response was aggressive. The [Catalina Island Conservancy](https://www.catalinaconservancy.org/index.php?s=wildlife&p=island_fox), which manages most of the island, launched a captive breeding program and began vaccinating wild foxes against distemper and rabies. In 2004, the federal government listed several island fox subspecies, including Catalina's, under the Endangered Species Act, adding legal weight to the recovery effort.

It worked, and faster than almost anyone expected. Within little more than a decade, the population had climbed back past its pre-outbreak level, and conservation groups have since pointed to the island fox as one of the quickest recoveries of an endangered mammal on record. The foxes — bold, curious and, after thousands of years on a predator-free island, largely unafraid of people — were everywhere again.

## The new danger

That very boldness is now the problem. With the population healthy, the leading cause of death has shifted from disease to vehicle strikes on the island's roads, the Conservancy says. The same fearlessness that makes the foxes a delight for visitors leads them to wander into the path of cars, golf carts and service trucks, especially around the island's main town of Avalon.

Conservationists are working to keep the recovery from being undone by ordinary traffic — pressing for slower speeds in fox-active areas, continued monitoring and public education, while also tracking other emerging health concerns in the population. (The Conservancy has flagged precise annual vehicle-strike totals as a continuing area of study.)

## A lesson in fragility

The Catalina fox tells a story conservation biologists know well: saving a species from one threat can simply clear the way for the next. A virus nearly erased these animals from an island they have called home for millennia; now the danger is the mundane hum of the roads that share their habitat.

For visitors taking the short ferry from Long Beach or San Pedro, glimpsing a fox trotting across a Catalina hillside still feels like a small piece of luck. The people working to protect them are asking for something simple in return: slow down, so the comeback holds.

## Sources

- [Catalina Island fox population rebounds, but vehicle strikes remain top threat](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/catalina-island-fox-population-rebounds-but-vehicle-strikes-remain-top-threat/)
- [Catalina Island Fox — Wildlife Programs](https://www.catalinaconservancy.org/index.php?s=wildlife&p=island_fox)
- [Island Fox](https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/island-fox.htm)