I love hearing the stories that explain how species affect one another, even when they don't directly interact.
Bald Eagles are being re-introduced to the Santa Cantalina islands and this is having a positive affect on the local population of Island Foxes, possibly the smallest breed of foxes in North America, and until recently, an endangered species.
My first thought was that this seemed backwards. I assumed Bald Eagles might be a danger to the small foxes because the Bald Eagles could prey upon them. But they don't. In the 1950s, our use of DDT devastated the Bald Eagle population on the islands. With few Bald Eagles to compete with, the Golden Eagles moved in to the islands. The Golden Eagles preyed upon the large population of feral pigs, the young feral pigs, that humans had introduced in a failed attempt to use the islands to host the livestock. Decades later when humans began removing the feral pigs from the islands, the Golden Eagles turned to the Island Foxes as a primary source of food.
A few decades ago, scientists started re-introducing Bald Eagles to the islands to reclaim their former habitat and the Bald Eagles are driving away the Golden Eagles, thus allow the Island Foxes to flourish again.
The Circle of Life.
See pictures of these adorable foxes and learn all about this from these sources:
https://www.islandconservation.org/island-foxes-shed-endangered-status/
http://www1.islandfox.org/p/about-island-fox.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_fox
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