Evaluating climate-related threats and conservation strategies for the cascade red FOX in washingtonproject period:08 28 2024 - 09 30 2026WITH the recent designation of the cascade red FOX (CRF), a…

Evaluating climate-related threats and conservation strategies for the cascade red FOX in washingtonproject period:08 28 2024 - 09 30 2026WITH the recent designation of the cascade red FOX (CRF), a range-limited and climate-sensitive carnivore as endangered in washington, there is an urgent need to understand the drivers of its decline and develop an actionable recovery plan. Putative threats to the CRF are nearly all either directly related to or potentially exacerbated by climate change, including habitat alteration through conifer encroachment, increased wildfire risk, and modified snow characteristics and increasing use of the crfs high-elevation habitat, particularly in winter, by coyotes (canis latrans), an important competitor, and humans, which can cause increased mortality risks to CRF. Despite the endangered status of the CRF, no concrete management strategies have been identified or evaluated. The urgent need to identify and evaluate alternative management strategies for CRF will be addressed through two interrelated efforts. First, GPS tracking will be conducted of CRF and combine tracking data with an existing genetic capture-recapture dataset in an integrated spatial capture-recapture model that will allow US to estimate CRF abundance, survival, habitat use, and movements, along with the effect of spatial covariates particularly those related to threats on these processes. Second, multi-agency structured decision-making (SDM) process will be implemented to identify and evaluate alternative management strategies for the CRF. The evaluation process will be accomplished through a management modeling exercise that will integrate the results of empirical research with literature and the judgments of experts. The results of this process will directly contribute to management planning for the state, federal, and tribal partners engaged in the SDM process, through the identification of preferred management strategies to mitigate climate-related threats and advance CRF management objectives. The project will also provide a template for management planning to benefit a variety of other high-elevation carnivores threatened by climate change. Objectives: (1) combine spatial capture-recapture data from scat collection with tracking data in an integrated model to estimate CRF density, survival, habitat use, and movements, and the effects of threats on these processes.(2) employ results from objective (1), along with literature and expert judgement, to develop a management model to evaluate alternative management strategies. This effort will be undergirded by a multi-agency structured decision-making (SDM) process integrating the resist-accept-direct framework. The results of this work will inform CRF management by state, federal, and tribal partners.