A OF V MET FIRST RE Raring PREV Richar GENERAL FIRST Jef BEHA GENETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF RED FOXES IN NORTHEASTERN OREGON BALD GREGORY AGREEN Owl Ridge NRC, 22116 45th Avenue SE, Bothell, WA 98021 USA;
[email protected] CA BENJAMIN NSACKS Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit, 248 CCAH, Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, University of FIRST California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95618 USA RA LEONARD JERICKSON Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, 107 20th Street, La Grande, OR 97850 USA RAPT KEITH BAUBRY US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3625 93rd Avenue SW, Olympia, WA 98512 USA NORTHWESTERN NATURALIST 98:73–81 AUTUMN 2017 GENETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF RED FOXES IN NORTHEASTERN OREGON GREGORY AGREEN Owl Ridge NRC, 22116 45th Avenue SE, Bothell, WA 98021 USA;
[email protected] BENJAMIN NSACKS Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit, 248 CCAH, Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95618 USA LEONARD JERICKSON Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, 107 20th Street, La Grande, OR 97850 USA KEITH BAUBRY US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 3625 93rd Avenue SW, Olympia, WA 98512 USA ABSTRACT—The Rocky Mountain Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes macroura), once common in the Blue Mountains ecoregion of northeastern Oregon, was considered rare in eastern Oregon by the 1930s and thought to be extirpated by the 1960s, when putatively new Red Fox populations began to appear. Although the new foxes were long presumed to be nonnative (originating from fur-farms or deliberate release), they were often phenotypically similar to native Red Foxes, suggesting the alternative possibility that they arose from range expansions, either by small numbers of remnant native foxes at higher elevations or by Rocky Mountain Red Foxes to the east.