There is an island in the sea called Limuw.
On that island, in the tall grass under the oak trees, sits a fox.
She is very little. As little as a house cat. You could pick her up in your two arms. Her fur is the color of dry grass and soft rust and gray. Her eyes are dark and quiet.
She is the island fox. And she lives only on Limuw, and on a few other small islands in the sea nearby. Nowhere else in the whole world.
Only on Limuw and her sister islands.
She is not like the big foxes on the mainland. She does not run away when she sees you. She does not bark or snap. She just looks at you with her dark quiet eyes. She might tilt her head. She might sit down.
She has been here a very long time. Her grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother was here. And her grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother was here. Foxes have been on Limuw for longer than anyone can count.
For all that time, the little fox did not have much to be afraid of. Nothing bigger lived on her island. No wolves. No coyotes. No big cats. Only the little fox, walking slowly through the grass, eating mice and crickets and berries and figs.
She did not know to look up.
She had never needed to.
· · ·
Then one year, big birds came. Big, big birds called eagles, with wings like sails and eyes like sharp stones. The little fox had never seen anything so big come from the sky.
The big birds were hungry. And the little fox was small. And she did not know to look up.
For a little while, there were almost no foxes left on Limuw.
But then, people helped.
People on boats. People who knew about the little fox and did not want her to be gone. They caught the big birds, gently, and they carried them far away to a place the birds came from, where they could live without hurting the little fox. They brought the little fox into safe places while she had her babies. They waited. They watched. They counted.
And the little fox came back.
There are many little foxes on Limuw now. They walk through the grass. They eat mice and crickets and berries and figs. They tilt their heads at you. They sit down if they feel like it.
They are very small. They are very quiet. They are very much themselves.
On Limuw.
· · ·
Now it is afternoon on Limuw. The sun is warm. A small wind moves through the oak leaves.
The little fox is sitting in a patch of light. Her eyes are almost closed. Her tail is curled around her feet.
She is not afraid. She is not hurrying. She is just here, on her island, in the sun.
She has been here a very long time.
She is still here, on Limuw.
For the Teacher
About this story
The Santa Cruz Island fox is real, and everything about her in this story is true. She is the smallest fox in North America — about the size of a house cat or a Chihuahua. Island foxes live only on six of California’s Channel Islands and nowhere else in the world. They are active during the day as well as at night, generally docile, and often unafraid of humans.
The story the children hear in the middle of this book — about the big birds who came, and the people who helped — is also true. In the 1990s, golden eagles began nesting on the Channel Islands and preying on the island foxes, who had no experience with aerial predators and did not know to look up. The Santa Cruz Island fox population fell from about 1,500 animals to fewer than 100 in just a few years. A careful, multi-agency effort — led by Channel Islands National Park, The Nature Conservancy, and the Institute for Wildlife Studies — relocated the golden eagles, bred foxes in captivity, and returned them to the island. By 2016, the fox had recovered so completely that she was removed from the Endangered Species List. This is regarded as one of the fastest species recoveries in the history of U.S. conservation.
The words in this story
Limuw
LEE-moo
the Chumash name for Santa Cruz Island. Means in the sea.
If a child asks
“Did the big birds die?”
No. The big birds (golden eagles) were carefully caught and carried back to a place far from Limuw where they could live and hunt without hurting the little foxes. The people who did this worked very hard to keep both the foxes and the eagles safe.
“Why didn’t the fox know to look up?”
Because nothing had ever hurt the little fox from the sky before. Her grandmothers and great-grandmothers and all their grandmothers had lived on Limuw without any dangers from above. She had never learned the lesson because she had never needed to. Animals learn from what has happened in their families for a very long time.
“Can I see a fox there?”
Yes. The island foxes on Santa Cruz Island are often seen by visitors — sometimes very close up, because they are not afraid of people. Visitors are asked not to feed them or try to touch them, so the foxes stay wild and healthy.
A small note on Chumash relationship with the fox
The island fox has been important to the Chumash people of the Channel Islands for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence suggests the ancestors of today’s foxes may have been brought to the islands by early Chumash ancestors over seven thousand years ago. The fox’s role in Chumash spiritual life is real and long-standing; this story does not go into that material, which is the Chumash community’s own to share. A curious older child or parent can follow up through the resources listed at the end of this book.
A note on care
This story touches real loss — a time when foxes almost disappeared. It also touches real help and real return. Both are true, and both matter. Preschoolers can hold both with an adult’s steady voice. The last lines — She is still here, on Limuw — are what you want them to carry out of the story.