Giving Arctic Foxes a helping hand
23 images Created 27 Feb 2025
The Arctic Fox Captive Breeding Station run by NINA Norwegian Institute for Nature Research runs sine 2006 and has helped to boost the fox population from as few as 40 in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, to around 550 across Scandinavia today. The foxes had been driven to near extinction across Scandinavia by hunters seeking their winter-white fur, before they gained some reprieve in hunting bans and protections introduced in the 1920s and 1930s. The government has so far spent 180 million NOK (€15.9 million) on the program - or about €34,000 for every released fox. Some of those foxes have crossed the Swedish border.
But the program is not even halfway to the goal of around 2,000 wild foxes across Scandinavia, which scientists say is the population size needed to be able to withstand low rodent years naturally. But as rodent populations have fallen away, Arctic foxes have struggled to recover on their own. And it’s been a particularly tough year for the captive breeding program. Normally, Craig Jackson and fellow project leader Kristine Ulvund would have had about 20 pups to release. But of the eight breeding pairs in captivity, only four females gave birth last spring – two of which then lost their entire litters. Nine pups were ultimately raised in the outdoor fenced enclosure near Oppdal, a remote site some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Oslo. Two pups were kept to be part of future breeding efforts. Then, golden eagles snatched another two just weeks before their Feb. 8 release, leaving only five. Surviving in the wilderness can be tough. While the wild population now stands at around 300 in Norway, the scientists have bred and released nearly 470 foxes since the program’s start. Foxes only live three to four years in the wild. Aside from dodging predators, the foxes need to hunt enough lemmings to make it through the long winters. Climate change is making this tough, as warming temperatures cause precipitation to fall more often as rain instead of snow. When that rain freezes, it can block the lemmings from burrowing into dens for their own warmth and reproduction.
The rodents’ once-reliable population cycles have become unpredictable and population peaks are lower. At the current growth rate, scientists said it could take another 25 years to reach the program’s goal of 2,000 Arctic foxes.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Ulvund. “But I still think we have some way to go before we can say that we’ve really saved the species.”
But the program is not even halfway to the goal of around 2,000 wild foxes across Scandinavia, which scientists say is the population size needed to be able to withstand low rodent years naturally. But as rodent populations have fallen away, Arctic foxes have struggled to recover on their own. And it’s been a particularly tough year for the captive breeding program. Normally, Craig Jackson and fellow project leader Kristine Ulvund would have had about 20 pups to release. But of the eight breeding pairs in captivity, only four females gave birth last spring – two of which then lost their entire litters. Nine pups were ultimately raised in the outdoor fenced enclosure near Oppdal, a remote site some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Oslo. Two pups were kept to be part of future breeding efforts. Then, golden eagles snatched another two just weeks before their Feb. 8 release, leaving only five. Surviving in the wilderness can be tough. While the wild population now stands at around 300 in Norway, the scientists have bred and released nearly 470 foxes since the program’s start. Foxes only live three to four years in the wild. Aside from dodging predators, the foxes need to hunt enough lemmings to make it through the long winters. Climate change is making this tough, as warming temperatures cause precipitation to fall more often as rain instead of snow. When that rain freezes, it can block the lemmings from burrowing into dens for their own warmth and reproduction.
The rodents’ once-reliable population cycles have become unpredictable and population peaks are lower. At the current growth rate, scientists said it could take another 25 years to reach the program’s goal of 2,000 Arctic foxes.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Ulvund. “But I still think we have some way to go before we can say that we’ve really saved the species.”
