![]() They can travel 90 km during a single day, and probably more. When moving throughout Nunavut, foxes travel on land and ice. A few of them come back to the same den the following year, but many never come back, as if they had been expulsed from their territory by another, stronger fox. In particular, we have found that arctic foxes living on Bylot Island can move in winter throughout Nunavut and even beyond, to Greenland, Quebec and the Yukon. For example, we have fitted some foxes with small collars (called Argos collars) that communicate with satellites, allowing us to know where foxes travel in winter. In the last 10 years we have used sophisticated technologies to study the movements of arctic foxes. Foxes can move far away from Bylot in winter To learn more about our field methods, please refer to our technical manual on foxes. The full dataset of our den monitoring on Bylot Island is available on NordicanaD. Since 2007, camera traps are installed on occupied dens to complement field observations. Only dens where cubs are seen or heard are categorized as breeding dens (natal or rearing den). All visits are made within a week to avoid counting the same litter twice due to relocation of cubs during the rearing period. Since then, over 110 dens are visited twice every summer, once in mid-May and once at the end of June. An extensive search of dens was conducted and covered an area of approximately 600 km 2 going from the Qarlikturvik Valley to Pointe Dufour. Starting from 2003, the monitoring became systematic. Starting in 1993, known den sites in the south plain of Bylot Island were opportunistically visited to assess the presence of cubs. The same is true with red foxes, but they are very rare on Bylot Island. Lemming populations go through phases of really high to really low densities, every 3-5 years (see Lemmings), therefore the reproduction of foxes varies through time. However, foxes also prey on other species like goose eggs and goslings, other migratory birds, and seals or seal carcasses found on the sea ice. ![]() The arctic fox is the main predator found on Bylot Island and their favourite prey is a small rodent called lemmings. ![]()
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