Scientists snap a GPS collar on one of the nation’s rarest mammals

The Sierra Nevada red fox — sleek, striking and astonishingly rare — ranks among the most endangered mammals in the United States. Scientists believe fewer than 50 remain in the Sierra Nevada, making the recent GPS-collaring of one individual a landmark moment for conservationists striving to save the species.

This marks the first time a Sierra Nevada red fox has been successfully captured, fitted with a tracking collar and released back into its alpine habitat. The achievement follows more than a decade of painstaking research and years of intensive trapping efforts.

The fox’s presence in the Sierra was only confirmed as recently as 2010, when a remote camera north of Yosemite National Park captured an image of the animal and its distinctive white-tipped tail. Before that, researchers had assumed the species disappeared from the region nearly a century ago, likely by the 1920s.

Since that rediscovery, wildlife biologists have relied on motion-triggered cameras and scat surveys to piece together the fox’s movements in the southern Sierra. Over the past three years, those efforts escalated into focused attempts to humanely trap the animal — a task made exceptionally difficult by the fox’s intelligence, speed and wariness of people.

The few remaining foxes inhabit some of California’s harshest terrain: barren, high-elevation landscapes marked by deep snow and rugged mountains. Their elusive nature and remote habitat have kept them largely out of human sight.

That changed in January, when biologists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife successfully captured a fox near Mammoth Lakes. After fitting it with a GPS collar, they released it back into the wild. Images shared by the department show the silvery-gray fox sprinting across snow-covered ground beneath sunlit alpine peaks.

Julia Lawson, an environmental scientist with the department, called the moment a major breakthrough. In a statement, she said the data gathered from the collared fox will be critical for understanding how the species lives and moves — knowledge that could shape long-term recovery plans.

The GPS device will allow researchers to track the fox’s daily activity and seasonal migrations, providing insights that were previously impossible to obtain.