In July 2019, a juvenile Arctic fox set off from Bylot Island in Nunavut, Canada, under the 24-hour summer sun. Probably alone, he wandered the tundra for 299 days, driving a whopping 6,400 kilometers before reaching his new home. A tracking collar confirmed the record-breaking journey.
“We knew they could go far,” says Dominique Bertaud, an ecologist at the University of Quebec who has led the Arctic fox tracking project for 20 years. “But we weren’t sure if this was an uncommon behavior or how far they would go.” In indigenous communities, small foxes have been reported traversing entire continents, and widely separated foxes have been reported. populations have similar genetics, Bertaud added. There are many possible reasons for such a move. For example, parents often expel young foxes from their natal territories to keep competition low, and mature foxes can be pushed aside by stronger individuals.
For recent research, Royal Society Open ScienceBertaud’s team tracked 170 foxes with collars from 2007 to 2021, 37 of which attempted long-distance migration. Bertaud predicted that most immigration attempts would end in failure. Predators, starvation and other hazards make the trek dangerous, he says. “They try to find another location, but it’s difficult.” was successful.
“These little animals are very impressive,” says Eva Fuglei, a biologist at the Norwegian Polar Institute who was not involved in the study. “With satellite tags, we can follow the footprints of arctic foxes. It will be interesting to see how fast they walk.”
A staggering 20 percent of the epic trekkers were adults, overturning the notion that only young foxes could undertake such trips. The insight is particularly relevant to scientists studying “the epidemic of zoonotic diseases that can be very dangerous to humans,” Fugley said.
Researchers had previously thought that adult Arctic foxes are less likely to carry disease because they are less mobile. But new research shows that a significant number of hardy old foxes can and do cross continents, carrying parasites and disease.
