Sierra Nevada red fox detected in the Lake Tahoe area for the first time in decades
By Brandon Downs
Wildlife officials say a Sierra Nevada red fox was detected in the Lake Tahoe basin for the first time in decades.
A trail camera captured the fox on the morning of Nov. 13, 2025, in the Blackwood Canyon area, located on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said on Wednesday. The camera sits at about 7,000 feet and is on National Forest Land within the Lake Tahoe Basin.
The CDFW says the Sierra Nevada red fox is one of the rarest carnivores on the planet. The species was thought to have eliminated from the mountain range and had not been detected in the Lake Tahoe area since the mid-1900s.
The Sierra Nevada red fox was first detected in the central Sierra Nevada, near Sonora Pass, in 2010. In recent years, high-elevation residents have been detected near Donner Lake and the headwaters of the American River’s north fork.
Scientists believe a limited population may be growing and expanding. Their estimated population in the Sierra Nevada is fewer than 50.
Earlier this month, fish and wildlife officials announced a Sierra Nevada red fox was captured in the Mammoth Lakes area. This marked the first time the CDFW fitted a Sierra Nevada red fox with a GPS-tracking collar in the southern Sierra Nevada and released it back into the mountains.
“This represents the culmination of 10 years of remote camera and scat surveys to determine the range of the fox in the southern Sierra, and three years of intensive trapping efforts,” said CDFW environmental scientist Julia Lawson. “Everyone on the team was thrilled to see our hard work pay off. Our goal is to use what we learn from this collared animal to work toward recovering the population in the long term.”
A team of scientists attached a GPS collar to a Sierra Nevada red fox in the Lassen Peak area in 2018, leading to the team discovering several dens and giving them a better understanding of the reproduction, movement and habitat use.
The Sierra Nevada red fox is listed as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act and has protection as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Officials say the decline in the species’ population is not fully known, but they suspect unregulated hunting and trapping in the early 20th century likely played a role.
