Good news from the arctic foxes in Varanger
Published on: 24. September 2020
There were five dens with confirmed reproduction this summer, despite the low small rodent abundance. Three were in the eastern half of the Peninsual and two further to the west. It is likely that there were some places with some remaining lemmings, as quite a few lemming remains were found on at least one den.
Together with Nina Eide and Kristine Ulvund from NINA, we captured the pups on all dens and marked them with microchips. We managed to capture 12 pups in total, and saw two more pups on one den. Although several pups were observed by SNO earlier in the season, survival was quite low, as expected given the small rodent situation. All the best to the pups that survived until now! The monitoring of the arctic fox population on Varanger is a collaboration between the national monitoring program for arctic fox, the captive breeding program and COAT.