Science Spotlight

Fox finishing out rehabilitation and being prepped for release at Sierra Wildlife Rescue. Photo © Jackie Young


Injured fox at Sierra Wildlife Rescue being prepped for initial debriding and cleaning of injured paws. Photo © Sierra Wildlife Rescue
 

Injured fox shortly after being removed from under a porch in Pollock Pines. Photo © Sierra Wildlife Rescue

Each year, Californians filing their individual state income taxes can choose to donate money from their refunds or payments to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Native Wildlife Rehabilitation Fund, line 403 on state tax form 540. Money from this Fund is then distributed through a CDFW competitive grants program that helps California rehab facilities support activities such as veterinarian treatment, animal care, facility maintenance and conservation education.

Sierra Wildlife Rescue (SWR) rehab facility in El Dorado County is a recipient of this funding, and recently helped a young, badly burned and injured California gray fox (kit) recover and be released back into the wild.

The kit was discovered hiding under the porch of a home in Pollack Pines on Sept. 6, 2021, after its residents returned from being evacuated from the Caldor Fire. The kit was estimated to be three to four months old, emaciated, burned and had extreme damage to its paws. 

“It took three days for our team to get the fox out from under the porch,” said Debbie Buckles, board president of SWR. “Once we got it out, we could see that not only was she singed, but she lost ear tips, and her feet were basically burned to the bone.”

SWR is usually called in on El Dorado County cases where injured, orphaned or sick wildlife are concerned. Their mission is to rehabilitate wildlife with minimal human/wildlife interaction in hopes to better the chances of a successful release back into the wild.

“We anesthetized her and debrided and cleaned the wounds,” said Dr. Marsha Birdsall, volunteer veterinarian with SWR. “Once she was bandaged up, we transferred her to one of our home rehab facilities. These are homes of our volunteer rehabbers that have larger properties with larger outdoor enclosures.”

At the home rehab facility, the fox was able to heal in an outdoor environment and be monitored by wildlife cameras set up around the property. This helps ensure that the animal will not imprint on people or begin to rely on human interaction while being monitored.

After nearly eight weeks, the fox’s injuries were getting better, but with some setbacks. Her burned and damaged skin and paws were healing, but she lost every paw pad, claw and several toes. SWR was concerned the lack of claws, paw pads and toes would make it difficult to return the kit to the wild.

“Our action plan in general is to return these animals to the wild,” said Buckles. “But we were concerned she wouldn’t be able to catch live prey or protect herself from larger animals.”

Thinking the fox would not be able to hunt or climb trees to avoid predators without her claws and toes, SWR reached out to their grant partner CDFW to see if the department knew of another facility that would take the kit in as an educational animal.

CDFW contacted Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue in Petaluma, and on Dec. 14, 2021, the kit was transferred to their facility where the team planned for it to live out its days at their outdoor facility. What the Sonoma County rehab team saw the kit doing while monitoring their property’s wildlife cameras, no one saw coming.

“The fox started showing signs that she could catch prey,” said Buckles. “She also found a way to climb. She would wrap her limbs around the tree, like a hug, and shimmy her way up.”

Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue began continuously conducting live prey testing with the fox, and it continuously would hunt and eat the prey. By mid-February, despite not having front or back claws, the fox was digging, climbing, hunting and grooming itself effectively.

“Now knowing the fox can hunt, climb, defend and groom itself we made the decision to bring her back from Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue and release her back into the wild in El Dorado County,” Buckles said.

The fox was released back into the wild in El Dorado County on March 2, 2022, after nearly six months of being rehabbed.

“We don’t usually name the animals in our care because they are not our pets, they’re wild animals,” said Buckles. “… but this fox overcame so much, and we were all so invested in her making it back to the wild that we now call her Phoenix, because there’s a story that says the Phoenix bird rises out of the ashes. That’s what this fox did, it rouse out of the Caldor Fire ashes.”

CDFW’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Program currently works with more than 80 permitted rehab facilities (PDF) like SWR and Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue across the state. For the 2022 grant cycle alone, CDFW has distributed $547,000 to these facilities for them to continue their work in their communities.

“These facilities along with their satellites and army of volunteers are the ones who put in the long, hard hours year after year to successfully rehab injured, orphaned or sick animals and birds of California,” said Heather Perry, CDFW’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Program Coordinator. “When tax-filers make the choice to contribute to the Native Wildlife Rehabilitation Tax Fund, their support allows for grant funding that SWR, Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue and many of our other permitted rehab facilities utilize to fund their work. The story of the Caldor Fire fox is just one example of what we can do when we all work together.”  

For more information on the Native Wildlife Rehabilitation Fund, please visit wildlife.ca.gov/tax-donation.

*According to CalFire records, the Caldor Fire started on Aug. 14, 2021and was active for 67 days. The fire burned through nearly 222,000 acres in El Dorado, Amador and Alpine Counties and destroyed 1,003 structures.

Media contact:
Leticia Palamidessi, CDFW Education and Outreach, (916) 708-8517

The 2020 Slink Fire burns part of the Slinkard/Little Antelope Wildlife Area, Mono County. Photo © Jeff Sullivan Photography


Fire damage in the Slinkard/Little Antelope Wildlife Area, Mono County. CDFW Photo


CDA and CDFW prepare a helicopter for aerial seeding. California Deer Association Deer photo


CDA using tractor for mechanical seeding. California Deer Association photo


A helicopter shortly after takeoff, on its way to aerial seeding. California Deer Association Photo

The eight largest fires in California history have consumed more than 4 million acres and burned more than 7,000 structures. And because all those fires happened just within the last five years, the state of California recently approved spending hundreds of millions of dollars through its Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan (PDF).

For the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), that means being able to significantly expand the scope of wildfire resiliency projects such as fuel reduction and forest health projects, as well as to restore habitat on CDFW lands that have burned recently. In northern Mono County, where the 2017 Slinkard Fire and 2020 Slink Fire together burned nearly 40 percent of the 11,700-acre Slinkard/Little Antelope Wildlife Area, CDFW is working hard with project partners to implement restoration and fuel reduction projects. That work includes seeding a mix of shrubs and grasses, planting nursery-grown bitterbrush, reforestation of Jeffrey pine and white fir, mowing fuel breaks and removal of invasive species.

“For the last century, fire suppression and climate change have led to larger fires that burn hotter and can leave the landscape more vulnerable to invasive nonnative plants, making natural recovery more challenging,” said Senior Environmental Scientist Aaron Johnson. He explained that the work being done at the wildlife area has two purposes: to improve habitat for mule deer, and expedite recovery of the desired natural communities, thus mitigating the potential transition to non-native annual grasses that contributes to the severity of fires.

“Cheatgrass does very well in the post-fire burned landscape, and once established, it increases the frequency and severity of wildfires on the landscape,” Johnson said. “Parts of Slinkard have burned enough times that there’s nothing but cheatgrass, and even the smallest lightning strike that might have historically burned a single tree can now lead to thousands of acres burned.”

California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan guides the work done by Johnson and Graham Meese, a new CDFW employee hired specifically for this purpose. Part of Meese’s job involves coordinating with groups and agencies outside CDFW that bring specific expertise such as fuel reduction or seeding.

“By building partnerships, we’re able to effectively increase the scale of work that we’re able to do,” Meese said. “I could spend all year seeding one meadow by myself, but with the state funding CDFW has received, we’re able to contract with nonprofits like the California Deer Association (CDA) to get landscape scale projects done.”

CDA has directed the aerial seeding on more than 2,000 acres within the Slinkard/Little Antelope Wildlife Area, while also conducting site surveys and the removal of hazardous burned trees. “The amount of work that CDA has completed in such a short period of time is impressive,” he said, adding that CDA staff and contractors will significantly increase CDFW’s capacity to tackle such projects over the next several years.

CDA describes itself as a wildlife conservation organization whose goal is improving the state’s deer herds and other wildlife. They have roughly 12,000 members – 10 of whom spent about a week last November repairing damage from the Slink Fire.

“We’re starting to see where repetitive fires burning within the same footprints are causing changes in vegetation and promoting invasives,” said CDA Communications Manager Cherise MacDougall. The CDA also sees changes in climate and the makeup of California as reasons to step in and help nature recover after a fire roars through. “In many of our areas, many wildlife species are in distress. It doesn’t matter if it’s yellow-legged frog, sage-grouse, spotted owl, mule deer or blacktail – it’s important our organization works for all of them,” she said. “We look at ourselves as being a part of the environment.  We have a role in stewardship so we can’t just throw our hands in the air and walk away. We’re in a different position than we were before 40 million people lived in California.”

On the Slinkard/Little Antelope site, mechanical seeding involving tractors was conducted where access was possible. In areas of the property that are too steep for tractors to operate, aerial seeding was employed. Johnson is hoping that weather, a variety of approaches and repeated treatments over the three-year term of the project will contribute to its success.

“We are sort of at the whim of the weather. We waited until we saw precipitation in the forecast (last November) and we lucked out. We managed to get the seed down right before the first winter storm and a lot of it got buried under snow, so I think we’re likely to get good germination,” said Johnson.

The work being done at the Slinkard/Little Antelope Wildlife area is just one of many wildfire resiliency projects CDFW is implementing across the state, aimed at improving the ecological resiliency of its wildlife areas, ecological reserves and the surrounding communities from potential wildfires. Managing wildfire resilience requires a landscape-scale perspective that is made possible by developing partnerships with other organizations, such as CDA, that share a common goal.

By CDFW Information Officer Tim Daly

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The California Fish and Wildlife Journal concludes its 2021 Special Issue installments with the winter quarter’s Special Issue: Effects of Human-Wildlife Interactions on California’s Natural Resources: Conflict and Coexistence (PDF). With this year’s unprecedented drought, unpredictable fire season, climate change, pandemic response, and increased human-wildlife conflict reported statewide, issue 107-3 is salient and timely. In this Special Issue, we explore various interconnected themes across four sections: Terrestrial Predator Interactions, Conflicts & Adaptive Management, Coexistence & Conservation, and the Human Dimensions of Wildlife Conservation.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) serves as the lead state agency charged with helping to resolve human-wildlife conflict, public safety, and reported depredation (property damage) and committed to advancing discussion and deeper understanding of human-wildlife interactions throughout the state. People live increasingly in close contact with animals, both wild and domestic, as the human population expands along the wildland-urban interface and increases over time. This reality has led to increased human-wildlife interactions and reported  human-wildlife conflict. Negative human-wildlife interactions can directly affect human and wildlife health and may result in loss of livelihood, reduced wellbeing, or in some instances, loss of life – animal or human.

Come read about the various types of human-wildlife interaction, some of the unique challenges – and opportunity – to better address understand and address human-wildlife conflict. Various agency partners, practitioners, researchers, and key stakeholders have contributed their expertise to this Special Issue. We hope you recognize the myriad factors that can shape our perception and approach to wildlife in California. Learn more!

The California Fish and Wildlife Journal has published high-quality, peer-reviewed science for more than 100 years – and the CDFW looks forward to more valuable contributions ahead.

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California is home to more native animal and plant species than any other state in the nation. It also hosts the most endemic species—species that occur nowhere else in the world. However, our incredibly diverse native wildlife is facing an intensifying array of stressors stemming from human activity: habitat loss, new land uses like cannabis cultivation, invasive species, wildfires, drought and so many others. Wildlife managers can mitigate these threats through actions like conserving and restoring habitat, building relationships with private landowners and managing ecosystems for resilience to wildfire and climate change. But, to effectively target management actions, managers need to have high-quality information on wildlife populations across the state.

In two studies recently published in the California Fish and Wildlife Journal, Vol. 107-2 (PDF), researchers with CDFW’s Cannabis Program and Wildlife Diversity Program focused on this need for effective wildlife data collection.

One study focused on monitoring small terrestrial vertebrates, like small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Traditionally, researchers have monitored these species through live-trapping and visual encounter surveys. But such time-intensive methods are not always feasible. Recently developed methods that use automatic cameras are one alternative. To determine how well cameras perform compared to more traditional methods, CDFW researchers tested two methods alongside each other: 1) visual encounter surveys, where they searched for reptiles and amphibians in a study area, and 2) camera traps, which combined small strips of fencing with close-focus cameras pointed at the ground. They found that the camera system detected far more species of small animals compared to the traditional surveys.

In a second study, researchers compared different methods for monitoring birds. Traditionally, researchers have used point counts, where trained observers identify every bird they hear or see at a location. Researchers are also increasingly using acoustic devices to automatically record bird sounds. Recently, machine learning tools have enabled computers to identify bird sounds from these recordings, allowing people to indirectly identify birds while saving much time and effort. In their study, the CDFW researchers found that low-cost recorders performed comparably to expensive ones, and that a machine learning tool accurately identified high numbers of bird species from the recordings.

The researchers will apply what they have learned and shared to a new statewide monitoring effort, which is being developed by CDFW’s Cannabis Program. These advancements will enable a more efficient wildlife monitoring effort that saves money and time. And most importantly, with the information gained from improved monitoring, CDFW staff and other wildlife managers will be able to make more informed decisions to help our native California wildlife cope with current and future challenges.

Since being signed into law in 1970, the California Endangered Species Act, or CESA, has proved to be a landmark law in a history of progressive wildlife conservation in California. It has been key in helping to stem the tide of species extinctions, raise public awareness about the plight of wildlife, and underscore the need to balance species conservation with economic development. CDFW is responsible for safeguarding the hundreds of CESA-listed species, and a key part of this mission is supporting and elevating the important research being conducted on these imperiled plants and animals.

The 2021 Special Issue of the California Fish and Wildlife Journal titled “The California Endangered Species Act: Successes and Challenges” contains a comprehensive collection of articles about the research, management and conservation of threatened and endangered species. At 473 pages, this is the largest Journal issue ever published! It includes 16 full research articles, five research notes, two review papers and four essays, altogether covering 25 species. Authors include CDFW staff, academic researchers, non-profit organizations and other conservation entities. Download the entire issue (PDF) or individual articles.

Topics covered in the issue include range expansions, new methods for species identification in the field and lab, reviews of habitat use and spatial occurrence patterns throughout California, results of management actions, benefits of long-term monitoring programs and planning strategies for conservation and recovery actions. The issue starts with a CESA Policy and Regulations section and follows with eight sections organized by taxa. Photos at the beginning of each section showcase California’s amazing biodiversity. For those new to CESA, an overview of the listing process is provided both in a detailed article and a simplified flowchart.

Article highlights include:

Amargosa Niterwort

Plants make up 158 of the 316 species currently listed under CESA. In this issue, Amargosa niterwort (Nitrophila mohavensis) takes the spotlight when authors share the value of a 10-year monitoring program for this alkali wetland plant, which occupies a total area less than 20 km2 in the northern Mojave Desert. Collaborative monitoring has resulted in a better understanding of the species, including phenology and abundance trends. This information could support conservation actions in response to threats such as groundwater alteration and off-highway vehicle impacts. For more details, see the article titled “Status of the Amargosa niterwort (Amaranthaceae) in California and Nevada.”

Bumble Bee Protection

In the article “A conservation conundrum: protecting bumble bees under the California Endangered Species Act,” authors Richard Hatfield and Sarina Jepson of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation present their view of the history and recent context of listing invertebrates under CESA. The authors argue that population declines driven by factors including climate change, insecticides and habitat loss have led to thirty percent of California’s bumblebee species facing extinction risk. In light of this, the Xerces Society and others have led a recent push to provide formal protections for several species of bumblebee. The article provides the authors’ overview of their 2018 petition to protect four imperiled bumblebee species under CESA and the subsequent legal complications that have unfolded.

California Tiger Salamander

“Use of atypical aquatic breeding habitat by the California Tiger Salamander” provides insight into this endangered species’ ability to reproduce outside of its historically associated habitat. Typically thought to reproduce only in vernal pools, researchers observed California tiger salamanders breeding in cattle stock ponds, intermittent creeks and rain-filled excavated depressions. Further investigation is needed to determine if these atypical breeding sites result in any reproductive success, as some have limited hydroperiods that may not be conducive to California tiger salamander metamorphosis. However, this study provides insight for the potential role of reproductive plasticity in the face of vernal pool habitat loss. For development projects within the range of the California tiger salamander, this study identifies additional habitat features that should be assessed when identifying and addressing potential impacts to this listed species.

We would like to thank the CDFW editorial staff for their hard work on this special issue. We also want to thank and acknowledge the researchers and authors of the articles, whose hard work to understand these imperiled species is helping bring them closer to recovery. The California Fish and Wildlife scientific journal has published high-quality, peer-reviewed science that contributes to the understanding and conservation of California’s wildlife for more than 100 years. We look forward to the continued contributions in the next decade to come.