Arctic Fox pups at the Zoo

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WINNIPEG September 14, 2006 - The Arctic Fox has been displayed and bred periodically at the Zoo since 1965, but the group died out in 1991. Despite many years of searching for surplus captive individuals, none was found because few other North American zoos display this northern species.

With the assistance of the Manitoba Wildlife and Ecosystem Protection Branch, and the Manitoba Trappers Association, six young Arctic Fox were trapped near Churchill and shipped to Winnipeg in the autumn of 2003. This summer, four young pups emerged above ground to join the adults. Currently in their tan summer coat, they will begin molting into their all-white coat in October.

No bigger than a house cat, the Arctic Fox is one of Manitoba's most remarkable animals. It is best known for its ability to withstand the coldest weather (below -70C) and its long-distance migrations from tundra to boreal forest when its food supply of lemmings and voles crashes. During a great influx of foxes in 1975, one male traveled from the Hudson Bay coast to the prairie shore of East Shoal Lake -- a distance of over 1000 km, and the longest inland trek ever recorded for a mammal in North America.