ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE

PROTECTION STATUS: Endangered

RANGE: Historically ranged from California's Sierra Nevada Mountains northward into Oregon's Cascade Mountains; today confined to two relict populations near Lassen Peak and Sonora Pass, with small numbers in the southern Cascades in Oregon

THREATS: Habitat destruction through logging, grazing, fire suppression, off-road vehicles and road building; poaching, predation, disease, genetic vulnerability and climate change

POPULATION TREND: While the exact population number of Sierra Nevada red foxes is unknown, a rapid reduction in its size over the past century is likely to have corresponded to sharp range contractions witnessed during the same period, as well as genetic evidence of decline. Likely fewer than 40 individual foxes — or even fewer than 20 — remain.

Photo of Sierra Nevada red fox by Keith Slausen/Wikimedia.