During 20, surveys were conducted at several sites in the park to collect fox scats samples for DNA analysis. The Cascades Carnivore Project has been monitoring Cascade red fox populations since 2008. This is a significant threat to a species that occurs at low abundance. However in the Paradise region, these carnivores are food habituated and susceptible to vehicle collisions due to their begging. The park provides excellent habitat for the fox and ample prey such as pocket gopher, snowshoe hare, songbirds, and huckleberries. The Cascade red fox has been known to visitors of the park for over 100 years. Much of what we know about the Cascade red fox is understood from research conducted at Mount Rainier National Park. They serve as indicators of future changes that will eventually affect more tolerant species and as such, make good models for conservation under changing climatic conditions. Many species that live at high elevation in the Pacific Northwest, such as the Wolverine and Pika, are of particular conservation concern due to their unique evolutionary histories and their sensitivity to climate change.
This decline may be caused by changes to their mountain home including habitat loss and alteration due to climate change, widespread mid-elevation timber removal, and increased winter recreation that provides pathways into alpine areas for less snow- adapted predators and competitors such as the coyote and non-native, lowland red foxes. Recent surveys for the Cascade red fox and other carnivores suggest a precipitous loss of population abundance and distribution of this unique carnivore. The low-elevation forest may as well be the ocean and it is unknown whether the foxes move between these sky islands. The volcanoes of the Cascade Range appear to act as islands of habitat in the sky for small and isolated Cascade Red Fox populations. These foxes prey on small mammals and birds unique to the mountains and thus have an ecology distinct from lowland red foxes. When the Wisconsin icesheets receded, the foxes migrated into the mountains where conditions were similar to the glacial period. There, they presumably adapted to the colder, glacial climate, which lasted for approximately 100,000 years and they became genetically and morphologically distinct. During the most recent (Wisconsin) glaciation, the foxes were pushed south of the icesheets into ice-free forest refuges in what is now North America’s midwest. The ancestors of this subspecies of red fox migrated across the Bering Landbridge into North America during the Illinoian glaciation over 300,000 years ago. It is endemic to Washington where it is restricted to the upper mountain forest, subalpine parkland, and alpine meadows of the Cascade Range. The Cascade Red Fox is a Washington Candidate Species for protection and Natural Heritage Critically Imperiled Species.
0 kommentar(er)
