Foxes Bounce Back In Westfjords

The Arctic foxes of northwest Iceland are observably recovering from last year’s mysterious die-off, and the population is now “full of life”.

“It’s full of life, both foxes and birds and animals running around,” mammal ecologist Ester Rut Unnsteinsdóttir told RÚV, describing the Hornstrandir region of the Westfjords. “Lots of spruce in bloom and young foxes everywhere.”

The fox population has by her estimation recovered from a mysterious and massive die-off of foxes that plagued the area last year.

As reported, everything from changing weather conditions to polluted food were brought up as possible causing factors for the die-off, but a culprit was never found. It is still unknown what befell many of last year’s foxes.

Arctic foxes are the only mammal native to Icelandic soil. There are, by 2012 statistics, about 10,000 such foxes in the country.