Snow patrol Inside the fight to save arctic foxes

Captive breeding has helped reduce threat from predators and the climate crisis-but can the species survive long-term?

- Alexa Robles-Gil

Deep in the Norwegian mountains, amid a vast expanse of bright snow and howling winds, Toralf Mjøen throws a piece of meat into a fenced enclosure and waits for a pair of dark eyes to appear from the snowy den.

These curious and playful arctic foxes know Mjøen well. He has been the caretaker at this breeding facility for 17 years, going up the mountain daily to feed them at their enclosures near the small village of Oppdal, about 400km north of Oslo.

But Mjøen's familiarity with the species stretches back much further, from his years working at his father's fox farm, where the animals were bred for their fur. Now, years after the fur farms have been shut down, the arctic fox has become a symbol of conservation in Norway. Its long-term fate here, however, is still in doubt.

"Sometimes," Mjøen said, "we can't do anything but try."

Saving an animal from extinction is often seen as a series of dramatic steps, such as banning hunting, to bring a species back from the brink. But for arctic foxes and other recovering but fragile animal populations around the world, Mjøen said: "It's all about small steps."

Every year since 2006, the Norwegian breeding programme has released captive-born foxes into the wild. Measured strictly by the numbers, it's working: the population of arctic foxes has increased more than tenfold and they have spread into Finland and Sweden.

But the research team running the recovery project still feels it is far from the finish line. Over the past five years especially, killings by golden eagles at the breeding station and increased inbreeding in the wild have complicated the rescue operation.

"The problems we're facing today are actually because of the success of the programme," said the project's leader, Craig Jackson, of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Nina).