What?
What is a fox village?
- Find a National Park with the right biome to build a fox village modeled after the one in Japan. There are also a number of other fine models, such as the cat and bunny islands (also in Japan).
- http://kotaku.com/you-can-experience-fox-heaven-in-japan-1683923041
What is a fox village?
- It is a tourist attraction, a theme park featuring red foxes in Japan. Here, visitors are charged admission and given food to feed the foxes. This is a family-friendly attraction for just any animal lover!
What about the cat & bunny islands?
- These are separate islands dedicated to house cats and bunnies respectively. However, visits to these places require no fees with the exception of the boat ride.
- They primarily rely on donations of food to feed them.
How?
- Have ticket admission to enter/visit (use profit for funds)
- Other funds from National Park/government
- Selling merchandise
Our plan is meant to publicly educate people about the critical status of the San Joaquin Kit Fox population. This is mainly because there is little to no knowledge about the kit foxes being endangered. Also, they’re not as commonly known as other endangered species like whales or pandas. As a result, people are unaware that one of the main reasons behind the kit foxes’ endangerment is because of pesticides. So to combat this problem, we would create a Kit Fox village in a National Park. We feel that this is the best way to inform and influence people to stop farmers from using harmful pesticides. Of course, this is only a small scale habitat for the kit foxes. It also is not a method of ex-situ conservation (rear endangered species to be later put back to the wild). Although this may be the case, we hope that through the form of entertainment for visitors, many more people can be motivated to learn and help protect the kit foxes. In addition, visitors can generate revenue by selling admission passes to visit the kit fox village and food for those who want the opportunity to hand feed them. By doing this, the fox village can be more self-sufficient in protecting these kit foxes. The use of National Park lands provides convenient access to lands that are already provided in nature. Also, little effort is needed for advertising because the National Park would have enough publicity to provide visitors with knowledge about the newly created fox village. Furthermore, the profit generated can be used to improve or gain habitats for the San Joaquin Kit Foxes living elsewhere. We predict that our plan will be very successful because of its model’s success in Japan. The Miyagi Zao Fox Village is considered successful due to its long-lasting history of 26 years since 1990.
Sources:
http://imgur.com/gallery/RU1CD
http://www.boredpanda.com/zao-fox-village-japan/
http://www.boredpanda.com/cat-island-japan-tweet-food-donation-aoshima/
http://en.japantravel.com/miyagi/fox-village-in-zao/14587
http://imgur.com/gallery/RU1CD
http://www.boredpanda.com/zao-fox-village-japan/
http://www.boredpanda.com/cat-island-japan-tweet-food-donation-aoshima/
http://en.japantravel.com/miyagi/fox-village-in-zao/14587