San Joachin kit fox
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009San Joachin kit fox (vulpes macrotis mutica)
This little guy is the smallest fox in North America, barely tipping the scales at 5 pounds. Living primarily in California (after being transplanted there years ago), the nocturnal kit fox has huge ears that look like they can pick up all satellite transmissions, alien and terrestrial! These ears are actually used to cool them in the hot desert environment.
They live in dens, with elaborate tunnels and multiple entrances, though they sometimes will choose to stay in abandoned pipes, mines, etc. The entrances to their dens are very small, thus enabling them to escape capture by large predators.
Their numbers are dwindling, though, due to extremely low birth survival rates, eating rodents that have been poisoned, destruction of their habitat, road kill, and drowning. Kit foxes are beginning to wander into towns, surviving on handouts, though some of the stories I’ve read make me doubt the good this is doing for the fox. Some well-meaning humans are giving them things like candy, pastries, and other equally non-nutritious foods. Their more customary diet includes small mammals (mice), lizards, birds, insects, and fish. I read that biologists say they must eat about 6 ounces of meat a night.
They mate in early winter, and give birth in March to 3-6 pups. In the two months that the parents feed the pups, they bring the pups the equivalent weight in meat of one super model (100 pounds). They are listed as Endangered (as of 1967!!) and their numbers continue to fluctuate. Estimates have their numbers at a mind-numbingly small 7,000 individuals. The San Joachin Kit Fox is under the care of the Endangered Species Recovery Program.