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| US Forest Service |
A native red fox living in the high Sierras has been spotted by researchers after a ten year absence from wildlife records. Biologists assumed the fox
(Vulpes vulpes)was extinct since it was never very numerous and suffered from competition by introduced foxes. A photograph of the rare Sierra red fox was identified in August. The Forest Service had been conducting a survey with remote cameras for the elusive fisher and marten. The last known sighting of the Sierra Nevada red fox in the Sonora Pass area was sometime in the 1920s. DNA testing by UC Davis geneticists of fur samples taken from the tree supporting the camera confirmed that the fox was indeed the Sierra Nevada red fox.