They Removed 5000 Feral Pigs to Save 85 Foxes, The Result Was the Fastest Recovery in History

On California's Santa Cruz Island, feral pigs never hunted the tiny island fox. But the piglets supported golden eagles, and those eagles drove the fox population down by roughly ninety-five percent. This documentary tells the full story of one of the most ambitious island restoration projects ever attempted. Conservation teams protected the remaining foxes, produced eighty-five pups in captivity, relocated golden eagles, reintroduced bald eagles, and removed exactly five thousand thirty-six feral pigs in four hundred eleven days. The operation used pig-proof fences, traps, helicopters, trained dogs, and sterilized radio-collared Judas pigs to locate the final survivors. Just as important, managers had to perform each step in the right order. Removing the pigs too early could have pushed hungry golden eagles to kill even more foxes. By two thousand sixteen, the Santa Cruz Island fox and two neighboring subspecies were removed from the endangered species list in what federal officials called the fastest successful recovery of any mammal in Endangered Species Act history. Discover how invasive species, DDT pollution, predator behavior, captive breeding, and ecosystem restoration came together in a conservation success that nearly failed. Subscribe for more documentaries about rewilding, wildlife recovery, invasive species, and the science of repairing damaged ecosystems. #IslandFox #SantaCruzIsland #Conservation #Rewilding #FeralPigs #WildlifeRecovery