The Santa Cruz Island Fox is a major success story in the conservation and restoration world. Living on Santa Cruz Island within the Channel Islands National Park, there were only 14 individuals remaining on the island just a few decades ago. The foxes were added to the endangered species list and a captive breeding program commenced while the main sources of the foxes population decline, non-native golden eagles, were relocated. The foxes now number in the hundreds and may be removed from the endangered list this year. The Channel Islands have many similar success stories including the return of native bald eagles to the islands, the bolstered populations of the endemic Island Scrub Jay, and a variety of plants and other animals that have been preserved because there of the intense effort going into the restoration and conservation of this unique group of islands. The eight land masses that make up the Channel Islands were separated from the mainland tens of thousands of years ago, and separated from each other around 13,000 years ago, so they have also been called the Galapagos of North America since the creatures living here have had so long to develop and evolve after being separated from a common ancestor on the mainland.
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