The incredible journey of the arctic fox to look for a home, photo

The arctic fox can travel almost 7,000 km to look for a safe place, an incredible journey with some consequences, studied by a Canadian scientific team.
A young arctic fox set off in July 2019 from Bylot Island in Nunavut, Canada and roamed the tundra for 299 days, probably alone, covering 6,400 kilometers before reaching a new home.
A research team from the University of Quebec had fitted her with a tracking collar and was able to follow her record-breaking journey. He thus discovered the incredible journeys these animals make.

The incredible journey of the arctic fox to look for a home, photo

In a study published in Royal Society Open Science, the team followed 170 foxes from 2007 to 2021. Of these, 37 attempted a long-distance relocation trip. Most migration attempts were expected to be unsuccessful, due to predators, hunger and other dangers that make hiking risky. Of the 37 long-range specimens, however, 13 successfully established themselves in new territory while their tracking collars were in place.

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“We knew arctic foxes could go far,” says ecologist Dominique Berteaux of the University of Quebec, who has been leading an arctic fox tracking project for 20 years. “But we didn’t know if this was rare behavior or how far they went.”
Little foxes cross entire continents, for various reasons: Parents often chase young foxes away from their birth territory to keep competition low, for example, and mature foxes can be pushed away by stronger individuals.

Arctic foxes and disease

An astonishing 20% ​​of the epic hikers were adults, reversing the assumption that only the youngest foxes could undertake this type of journey. With even less pleasant consequences for our health, or the spread of zoonoses, diseases that can be very dangerous for humans, scientists explain.
Photo Pexels, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons

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