GO
en-USnb-NO

Arctic Fox conference in Svalbard

Published on: 11. October 2022

The 6th International arctic fox conference was arranged by the Norwegian Polar Institute in Longyearbyen 26-29 August. The conference was held at the University Centre in Svalbard and had in total 69 participants, of which 24 were online, from 14 countries.

Arctic Fox conference in Svalbard

From the ice-breaker event at Camp Barentz in Adventdalen. Photo: Hurtigruten

The first day of the conference was a workshop titled “Issues of Tourism and Arctic Wildlife”, with seven invited talks that ended with a Panel discussion lead by the editor of “High North News” Arne O. Holm. Day one ended with a session about the new outbreak of “suckling fur lice” in arctic foxes and how to handle this issue.

Eva Fuglei opens the conference in Møysalen at UNIS. Photo: Elin Vinje Jensen

At day two the conference was officially opened by the Governor in Svalbard, Lars Fause, and it continued for two days with eight different sessions and 40 arctic fox biology presentations and 18 posters.

The conference ended with a boat excursion on MS Bard in Isfjorden, Tempelfjorden and Sassenfjorden, showing parts of the arctic fox monitoring area in Svalbard, including sightings of sea mammals, sea birds and glacier fronts. The conference was streamed and can be seen on youtube.

Panel-discussion in Møysalen at UNIS. Photo: Eva Fuglei.

Print

COAT aims to give robust documentation and predictions on climate change impacts on biodiversity, natural resources and ecosystem processes in the Norwegian Arctic, as a basis for management interventions and adaptations.