by: Arin
"You Better Not Blow This for Me"
It's early June in high Arctic Svalbard. The seabirds have mostly returned and are busily building nests and reuniting with old partners. Most of the birds and mammals are shifting from their winter to summer plumage and coats, while the patches of snow slowly melt into moss.
I was sitting among toppled lichen-covered stones, binoculars and notebook in hand, preparing for the four hours of sitting on the open mountain face of the little auk colony in Bjørndalen (bear valley). My task was to stay still and watch the little birds with my binoculars and spotting scope, checking for the colorful bands on their legs that identified them as study subjects from previous years.
I would identify maybe 10 or 15 different birds in the space of four hours as the same birds returned to their favorite rocks. Oftentimes no one new showed up for hours. As I sat, waiting for the circling flocks of gently cackling auks to settle onto their stone perches once more, I watched for foxes. Arctic foxes disrupted our band counting. A fox prowling through the colony sent all the birds upward once more where their bands could not be seen, and it may take them an hour to settle down once more.
That is, if the fox wasn't trying to be sneaky. If the fox had a mission, then it usually caused no disturbance at all.
One such fox crept up the side of the ridge where I sat. it moved low to the ground, ears perked up and eyes fixed obsessively upon the little penguin-like birds. The auks sat on their rocks, oblivious, and cackled softly to one another (their cackling seemed to grow louder and more mocking whenever one of us tripped over a rock) while they ruffled their feathers.
A banded little auk resting with its mouth full of pink krill for chicks in late July. A fox waits for a chance. The auk wings littering the mountain side serve as evidence of the fox's prowess as a hunter
The fox spent two hours moving in small spurts, freezing in one position for several minutes before moving again, to make sure it hadn't been seen. It moved some 15 feet above me on the mountain, and then down the same distance on my right. Despite my attempts to camouflage in a lichen colored poncho and large Radagast-the-Brown-esque hat, The fox knew I was there. Its occasional glances my way were not fearful or menacing. They clearly said, "you better not blow this for me."
I obliged and sat silently so as not to disturb the auks while the fox hunted. Eventually the fox crept forward a little too quickly, was spotted, and the auks erupted upwards with a chorus of panicked warbles. The hunt now blown, the fox sat up and watched them fly overhead and out of reach. It sent me one more vaguely accusatory glance as though uncertain what I had done but sure I had done something, and then trotted off to find less watchful prey.
About the Arctic Fox
Arctic foxes are amazing little mammals. They are found all across the circumpolar Arctic and have evolved to survive in one of the harshest environments on earth. With some of the best insulating fur recorded in mammals, the fox's winter coat is 200% thicker than in summer, and they can withstand temperatures of -94˚F (-70˚C). They do not hibernate and spend the winter scavenging for dead reindeer on the tundra, polar bear kills on the sea ice, and finding the caches of food they left in the summer. Sometimes they can go for weeks without eating.
There are two color morphs of the arctic fox, the white morph and the blue morph. White morphs are the most common and make up some 97-99% of all arctic foxes. White morphs tend to inhabit the tundra and the alpine regions where their snowy white fur is as ideal camouflage in winter as their brown and cream is on the summer tundra. Blue morphs are much rarer and make up the coastal ecotype. They are charcoal gray all year round, and blend into the rocks and beaches of the coast where they find their marine diet.
Some of the foxes I saw in Svalbard were barely larger than big house cats. They were small and inquisitive, adept at survival and varied in their coloring and personalities. Some trotted carelessly within 5 feet of us or hurried away at our steps, some were ash gray with golden eyes and some were patchy white and sat on the rocky mountain side as though they owned it, letting out incredibly loud and unsettling high-pitched barking noises.
Like most Arctic animals, arctic foxes are very curious. A tendency for investigation is a valuable trait in an environment where food is scarce. This has led to some foxes undertaking incredible treks across the Arctic that warrant some disbelief. The first summer I was in Svalbard a team with the Norwegian Polar Institute tagged a little blue morph arctic fox in her first summer. Over the next year the little juvenile female took off across the archipelago and finally ventured out onto the open sea ice in early spring. She crossed the empty frozen ocean and made her way to Greenland and then to Ellesmere island, Canada. In total the little fox ran over 2,700 miles in just 4 months.
While built to explore, foxes can also inhabit a territory for so long that their dens can be a century old. These dens can provide such an oasis of resources in the barren Arctic through the fox's feces and dinner scraps that the arctic fox has been called an ecosystem engineer. Vegetation thrives through the fox's presence and the resulting garden attracts many different species of grazers, birds, and scavengers.
Alkehornet (the auk horn) is an impressive rock formation hosting thousands and thousands of seabird nests. In the late summer when fledglings make the short flight to the ocean, Arctic foxes like this one feast on those that don't make it: an important food source before the hard winter.
As always, climate change foresees trouble for the little mammals. They manage to survive their larger and stronger competitors, red foxes, by being able to survive colder environments. But as the Arctic warms, the red fox moves northward and actively pushes out or kills the arctic fox while parasites and pathogens become more frequent. Melting sea ice cuts off the bridges the foxes use to travel between land masses while seabird and rodent populations decline and food sources dwindle and change.
The Arctic is resilient and rare, but it needs human intervention to fix human-caused problems. By working to slow and even reverse climate change we can help bring back the Arctic, where the short summer makes ecosystems vulnerable to such changes. Then the arctic fox can continue to be one of the only creatures able to undertake the journey across the frozen Arctic Ocean, crossing the world in search of something better, or perhaps simply something new. A mindset any scientist, explorer, or curious mind can understand.
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