Feds must declare critical habitat for endangered Sierra Nevada fox, judge rules

Sharon Bernstein, The Sacramento Bee on Sep 16, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge in Sacramento has ordered the Trump administration to designate critical habitat for the Sierra Nevada red fox, a species so rare it was erroneously thought to be locally extinct.

The bushy-tailed foxes, which once were plentiful at high elevations in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains of California and Oregon, are seldom spotted today and were declared endangered by the Biden administration in 2021.

But in a dispute that has continued into President Donald Trump’s second term, the federal government did not designate particular areas as “critical habitat” for the animals. Such a designation would identify habitat considered essential to the species and require federal agencies to consider potential effects on it when taking certain actions.

The animals are so rare that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has asked for the public’s help in identifying them. Earlier this year, a single Sierra Nevada red fox was spotted in the Tahoe Basin for the first time since the mid-1900s, prompting the state to release trail-camera video of the animal.

In 2025, the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife filed a lawsuit seeking to force the government to designate critical habitat for the foxes, saying their numbers in the Sierra Nevada were estimated to be as low as 18 to 39 animals.

“This imperiled population needs all the help it can get,” the environmental group said in its complaint.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd agreed, saying that in declining to designate habitat for the red fox, federal regulators had failed to consider how such a move might benefit the animals.

The government also did not consider the effect of a critical habitat designation on the possibility of the species’ recovery, or correctly analyze whether the loss of habitat posed a significant threat to their survival, Drozd said.

He did not order specific habitat to be chosen for the animals but gave the government two weeks to work with environmentalists to develop a plan.

Daniel Franz, the lead attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, welcomed the ruling.

“Every at-risk species requires habitat to survive and ultimately recover, and deserves the full protection the law requires,” Franz said. “This ruling makes clear that dodging those requirements is neither acceptable nor permissible.”

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