In 2005, California began eradicating 5,036 feral pigs from Santa Cruz Island as part of....

An aggressive campaign to eradicate 5,036 feral pigs from Santa Cruz Island triggered the fastest successful recovery of an endangered mammal in the history of the United States Endangered Species Act. According to official press releases from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and historical records from the National Park Service, the eradication program began in 2005 as part of a larger effort to save the native Santa Cruz Island fox from extinction. By 2015, the island's fox population had grown from fewer than 70 animals to about 2,100. In August 2016, federal officials removed three subspecies of the Channel Islands fox from the endangered species list.An ecological chain reaction on the islandThe decline of the Santa Cruz Island fox was caused by a chain of environmental changes linked to human activity. Feral pigs, brought to the island as domestic animals in the 19th century, later became wild and formed large populations. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the large number of pigs attracted non-native golden eagles from mainland California. The eagles fed on feral piglets but also began hunting the house-cat-sized island foxes. The foxes had lived for thousands of years withou...