A young snow fox has traveled 3,506 kilometers from Norway’s Svalbard Islands to northern Canada in just 76 days.
A young snow fox has traveled 3,506 kilometers from Norway’s Svalbard Islands to northern Canada in just 76 days.
According to a newspaper in Greenland, “Scientists are left with a finger on the fox’s journey”.
Researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute attached a GPS tracker to the female fox to track her journey. They set him free in March last year on Spitsbergen, the main island of Svalbard.
When this fox went west in search of food, it was less than a year old. He completed the 1,512 km journey to Greenland in just 21 days and soon after began the second part of his amazing journey by walking across the icy terrain.
When the fox left Svalbard, scientists found it 76 days later on Ellesmere Island, Canada. The fox had traveled about 3500 km on foot on snow during this time.
With the help of thick hairy fur, the fox is protected from external threats
‘We couldn’t believe it’
More than the length of the distance, researchers were impressed with the speed of the fox. Scientists estimate that the fox walked an average of 46 kilometers a day, and on some days it covered an average distance of 155 kilometers.
Eva Figli is working with Arnaud Terx of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research to find out how foxes cope with climate change in the Arctic.
He told Norway’s state-run NRK channel that ‘we couldn’t believe what we saw at first. We thought it (the fox) must have died or someone loaded it on the boat. But there are no boats in this area. We were very surprised’.
Never before has a fox been recorded traveling such a long distance so fast.
“There is plenty of food in the summer, but it is difficult in the winter,” said Eva Figli. Meanwhile, the snow fox migrates to other areas in search of food and survival. But this particular fox has traveled much further than the other foxes that were part of our study. From here the extraordinary ability of this small creature can be estimated.’
The Polly Institute has attempted to illustrate with a graph that the fox stopped twice during its journey from northern Greenland.
According to scientists, the fox must have done this to wait for the bad weather to pass.
This is possible because the fox is protected from snow and frost by its hairy fur. Another possibility is that the fox may have found seabirds to eat in a pond.
According to the Polar Institute, we don’t know what the fox did in Canada because its transmitter stopped working in February.
But according to Eva Figli, the fox would have to change its diet to survive there. “Foxes on Ellesmere Island survive by eating rats called lemmings instead of fish,” he said.
Snow foxes are facing problems due to the melting of ice in areas near the North Pole. For example, she can no longer go to Iceland. For some time to come, the fox population in Svalbard is likely to be completely isolated.
Eva Figli added to NRK that there is still hope that ‘higher temperatures in Svalbard will probably increase the deer population, and foxes will collect their carcasses (for food).’
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2024-09-25 04:26:13
