How ’s this for a road trip ? A unseasoned Arctic fox ( Vulpes lagopus ) has trekked across the icing from Norway to Canada in a mammoth 3,506 - kilometre ( 2,176 - nautical mile ) journey in disc time .
Scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute used a GPS tracker attached to a collar to follow her as she leave the Svalbard Archipelago on March 26 , 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island in Nunavut , Canada just over 2 month later . She made the journeying in just 76 day , meaning she was travel at an average rate of 46.3 kilometer ( 28.7 miles ) a day – that ’s more than a endurance contest every day for over 10 weeks .
Reported in the journalPolar Research , the researchers compose that this is “ among the longest dispersion event ever recorded for an Arctic slyboots . ” It ’s also the fastest drive rate memorialize for this metal money , 1.4 times quicker than the previous record - bearer , an adult male person that was dog in Alaska .
Unfortunately , the GPS collar stopped working on February 6 , 2019 , so the team no longer cognize where the intrepid fox is . Nevertheless , the research squad managed to gather enough information over the course of 2018 to detail its incredible Arctic hike .
" We did n’t cogitate it was honest at first . Could the fox have been recover all in and now onboard a boat ? But no , there are no boats that go so far up in the trash , so we just had to keep up with what the George Fox did , ” Eva Fuglei , study source from the Norwegian Polar Institute , said ina statement .
The field of study note that this individual will have to adjust to some big dietary changes now they are in the Canadian Arctic , as the population there tend to corrode lemming and diminished mammals , rather than the marine - based dieting they eat in Svalbard .
While this might voice like a feel - good fib of an adventurous fox , the story also unpins the importance of address theeffects climate change , and theshrinking of the diametric ice caps , is let on animal . icing is vital for foxes and other creatures to venture around the Arctic and between continents . Arctic dodger have already become isolated on Iceland due to the demise of the frigid ice and if things keep as they are , the population in Svalbard could become completely isolated too .
“ If the ocean frappe disappears , the archipelago of Svalbard will be isolate , ” confirmed Fuglei .
“ This is another deterrent example of how important ocean methamphetamine is to wildlife in the Arctic , " contribute Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment , Ola Elvestuen . " The warming in the north is frighteningly tight . We must cut emissions quickly to preclude the sea ice from disappear all summertime . ”
Arnaud Tarroux , Norwegian Institute for Nature Research CC BY 4.0
