This footage was taken on Svalbard.
Arctic foxes are notoriously unafraid of people, and early Arctic explorers even kept them as pets.
They are very closely related to the swift fox of the North American prairie. Traditionally, kit and swift foxes were considered to be the same species, but it was found that in terms of their genetic make-up, kit and swift foxes vary as much from each other as swift foxes vary from Arctic foxes.
Arctic foxes usually have quite large litters. However, very few kits in an individual litter will survive to weaning. Even fewer will survive to adulthood.
These little foxes often follow polar bears out onto the ice, where they scavenge the bears’ kills. They are the jackals of the ice. I suppose that any animal that has developed enough courage to scavenge off a polar bear is going to have enough courage to scavenge off of people.
And that may be why it was so easy for trappers and explorers to take these animals. In the polar regions, a fox must take food where it find it. Excessive caution can be death sentence, just as too little caution spelled doom for countless species native to islands. Curiosity really did kill the fox.
It is very intersting to observe how these “canis” are opportinists… Small predators have to be like that and dogs follow almost the same pattern even if they are “socialized” !
Have you read about the silver fox project? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts
The part that I find fascinating is this:
“Other physical changes mirror those in dogs and other domesticated animals. In our foxes, novel traits began to appear in the eighth to tenth selected generations. The first ones we noted were changes in the foxes’ coat color, chiefly a loss of pigment in certain areas of the body, leading in some cases to a star-shaped pattern on the face similar to that seen in some breeds of dog. Next came traits such as floppy ears and rolled tails similar to those in some breeds of dog. After 15 to 20 generations we noted the appearance of foxes with shorter tails and legs and with underbites or overbites. The novel traits are still fairly rare. Most of them show up in no more than a few animals per 100 to a few per 10,000. Some have been seen in commercial populations, though at levels at least a magnitude lower than we recorded in our domesticated foxes.”
That observation has stuck with me over the past few years. How incredible mother nature can be!
It’s amazing, isn’t it?
They’ve also tried otters and white-footed mice.
But none have been as amazing as this foxes.
You can now buy one of those foxes: http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/wanna-tame-fox/
Well, of course you knew about this project… you are an amazing source of knowledge! I have been enjoying reading your blog.