Introduction

This project aims to create a protected habitat area for the Kit Fox (Vulpes Macrotis) in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

GAP Analysis is the term used for this type of research and it uses current habitat range of the species, current land use of the area and the land management of the study area.

Two prey species were included as part of the analysis as well as two competitive predators.

Background

This species was chosen for GAP Analysis because the San Joaquin Valley population of the Kit Fox which is known as the San Joaquin Kit Fox or Vulpes macrotis mutica is now considered endangered by the California Department of Fish and Game.

Wildlands INC  designated the Deadmans Creek conservation bank to help re-establish the species

Caltrans is currently conducting a study of 4 lane highways and their effects on the San Joaquin Kit Fox population. The 5 Freeway is a major highway that cuts through these foxes habitat. A good amount of foxes wind up dead each year due to hits by cars.

5 species were selected in helping with this analysis

Kit Fox "Vulpes macrotis mutica"

Competitive Predators

Coyote "Canis latrans"

Red Fox "Vulpes vulpes"

Prey

Giant Kangaroo Rat "Dipodomys ingens" - Also Endangered

Black-Tailed Jackrabbit "Lepus californicus"

Study Sites

These 3 study areas had all five habitat ranges of the chosen species.

The farthest north study area was selected as its proximity to the 5 Freeway was greatest, and it was entirely in the San Joaquin Valley. It also is congruent with the Caltrans research.

Data Gathered

 Data was gathered from a few different websites. Many of these websites were government databases, but a few also include academic research sites. The majority of the data came from the California GAP Analysis project that was performed by UCSB. The final project UCSB completed can be viewed at the following link. http://www.biogeog.ucsb.edu/projects/gap/gap_home.html

Data for this project included:

Major Roads of California - "T- Drive"

Hydrology of California - "Cal-Atlas"

Land Management of California - "UCSB GAP Study"

Land Cover of California - "UCSB GAP Study"

Squirrel Habitat Ranges - "Department of Fish and Game, California"

Major Cities of California -

Counties of California - "TIGERline Census Data"

Basemap - Topo - "ESRI Online"

Preliminary Analysis

Methodology

 First we had to see what the management status of the land was. Current unprotected areas have a status of 4.

Each of the land status codes were queried out of the landmanagement shapefile. The previous map shows the land status of our target area.



Then a table containing all five species and their highly suitable areas was joined to a land cover file from UCSB. This allowed me to select by attributes the most suitable area for each species separately. After each selection a resulting feature class contained the polygons that had achieved a 5/5 score for suitability. The following map shows the Kit Fox highly suitable areas.

One prey animal was shown for reference

Results

This was the land chosen to be set aside for the Kit fox

Analysis

The land selected obviously did not fall inside the study area, but it effectively closes the GAP on the three highly suitable areas for the Kit Fox. This land is also near the 5 freeway and maybe it will be possible to build a tunnel underneath the freeway for the foxes to cross safely into this sanctuary.

The current land cover of the area is natural but it is a status 4 land. There is an island of status 3 land within the status 4. I feel this land is not readily used and can be converted to a Kit Fox sanctuary.

The next map shows the competition in this new sanctuary

As you can see the Red Fox does not ultimately travel past the freeway very far so this selected sanctuary would not have high competition from Red Foxes

Conclusion

Overall I feel the selected site is a suitable location. It is also a feasible project that Caltrans and Fish and Game could cooperate on.

With this sanctuary the Kit Fox species could grow in population and reach stable numbers which would hopefully bring them off the endangered list