ODFW wildlife interns document Sierra Nevada red fox near Crater Lake National Park

Biologists are working to better understand the conservation needs for Sierra Nevada Red Fox (SNRF) in Oregon.

The SNRF subspecies historically occurred in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain ranges as far south as Mt. Whitney in California, and as far north as Mt. Hood. Now, there are small (and genetically isolated) populations of SNRF in the Mt. Hood, Central Cascades, and Crater Lake National Park regions of the Cascade Range. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of deciding whether to list Oregon's SNRF under the Endangered Species Act.

ODFW staff, partners, and volunteers are increasing efforts to inventory and monitor SNRF populations by documenting home range size and habitat use for the Central Cascades population. They also are working with Washington State University to develop standard survey methods, to generate baseline data on fox presence/absence and associated variables, and to evaluate how climate change will affect future fox habitat availability.

ODFW staff are collecting observation data in places where SNRF occurred historically, or where we have no SNRF observations despite recent model results that predict fox presence. In areas where foxes do occur, staff, partners, and volunteers are searching for scat, which can be used to better understand SNRF diet, levels of hybridization, and population size and health.

During the 2025 field season, more than 38 staff and volunteers contributed over 228 hours, searched more than 475 miles of trail, deployed 83 cameras, collected 93 scats, and documented six new fox locations in the Crater Lake and Central Cascades SNRF population boundaries. Excitingly, ODFW undergraduate interns Meira Rice and Joelle Jorissen documented a red fox on a camera they deployed in the Sky Lakes Wilderness area, marking the first sighting on camera south of the park in Oregon in 17 years.

SNRF are a Species of Greatest Conservation Need. Threats to SNRF may include impacts from recreational activities, vehicle strikes, rodenticide, and climate change. Other threats may be vulnerability due to small population size, effects of wildfire and fire suppression activities, non-target capture during trapping efforts, predation and competition with dogs/coyotes, and hybridization with non-native red fox lineages.