SANTA ROSA ISLAND — These are wonderful times to be an island fox.
A decade ago, the house-cat-sized animals were scampering toward extinction, with only a few dozen surviving at spots scattered around Channel Islands National Park. Now they're practically poster mammals for species revival, numerous enough that government scientists no longer have to breed them in the safety of chain-link pens.
On Thursday, one, then another of the relentlessly cute critters dashed into the brush of this wind-swept island -- the last of the three where the breeding program operated. The transfer, solemnly performed by a park biologist and the second-in-command of the Interior Department, marked the end of a $5.4-million rescue effort that started in 1999.
"It may be one of the quickest recoveries in the history of the Endangered Species Act," said Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "It's a phenomenal success story."
And all it took was booting out dozens of fox-killing golden eagles, bringing back the bald eagles that were nearly wiped out decades before and killing some 5,000 feral pigs.
The island fox was listed as an endangered species in 1994. Officials said it may be taken off the list in about three years.
"To put that in perspective," Scarlett said, "we've had species on the endangered list since the act was passed" in 1973.
An avid hiker, Scarlett strode up a steep, mile-long trail as sweating park service personnel lagged behind. As they climbed, they wound through stands of rare, bonsai-like Torrey pines and gazed out on miles of pristine beaches, vast plains and deep gullies. On a Santa Rosa beach, a rib from a century-old shipwreck pokes through the sand. In a Santa Rosa canyon, archaeologists have found bones dating back 13,000 years -- the oldest human remains in North America.
On her most recent trip to Santa Rosa, Scarlett discovered the jawbone of an ancient pygmy mammoth. Now she bent over to inspect what appeared to be a fox's scat -- a sight once common but now worth a consultation with park staffers.
"The foxes used to just pop up everywhere," said park spokeswoman Yvonne Menard, whose husband, Mark Senning, is the ranger on Santa Rosa. "It's been sad not to see them."
For as long as 16,000 years, the fox had been doing fine. The largest native mammal on the Channel Islands -- and the smallest fox in North America -- it flourished on a diet of mice, crickets and berries. With no natural predators, the islands were a vulpine paradise.
