Tomorrow, Friday, June 4th, thousands of children, dressed up like arctic foxes, come in a parade in front of the Royal Palace in Karl Johan Square, Oslo.
These kids are members of environment-ambassadors, a project of children for nature. They will be accompanied by ten ministers of the parliament of Norway, who will walk with them towards the Royal palace.
These children love the arctic fox and they will deliver thousands of beautiful drawings of the species. They want to point out the importance of all species of animals in Norway and build up a world with space for everyone; humans, animals and plants.
Nowadays there are only 50 adult arctic foxes in the country and 2000 other species endangered. In the next decade, 285 of those could become extinct.
The thousands of "arctic foxes", the ministers and other participants will learn each other a special arctic fox dance which will be danced in the art scenario at Spikesgruppa in Oslo tomorrow.
We hope to get a visit by Norwegian kids who can teach us the arctic fox dance so that we can dance with them at the arctic fox centre..

Our summer employees have begun to work at Eyrardalur, the old house where The Arctic Fox Centre is located. These are Runa, Inga Vala, Fanney, Fjóla and Hjörleifur. As the tradesmen were still at work, they were harassed by a group of people, heavy weaponed with scrubbing brooms and wet rags. There is no time to waste; the centre will open the exhibition and Café on June 12th - only 9 days ahead...
After June 12th the exhibition will be open all days until end of August from 10 to 18 and the Café will be open all days until 22....
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Wildlife and landscape photography May 29, 2010 in the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. Hornstrandir, a Nature Reserve since 1975, is a remote area with majestic bird cliffs, unspoiled nature and wildlife.

The arctic fox was the only terrestrial mammal in Iceland when the settlers arrived in the 9th century. In Hornstrandir Nature Reserve the arctic foxes have been protected since 1995 and it is now a sanctuary to Iceland´s most dense arctic fox population. Due to the protection, the arctic foxes in Hornstrandir have become tame and curious of the people passing by, making it an outstanding place to photograph them.

In late May it is a breeding season for both foxes and birds. The male arctic fox is busy foraging and defending the territory. The female spends most of her time inside the den with newborn cups and the male brings her food while the pups are too vulnerable to leave them. The cliff birds lay their eggs on the narrow shelves of the vertical walls in the cliff and the sound of million sea birds in the cliff is outstanding. Occasionally you see the gyrfalcons of Hornvik glide over the sea bird colonies as they also have mouths to feed, hatching earlier than other birds in the area.

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The Arctic Fox Centre just received a grant from the Westfjords Cultural Association. The grant is for the project „Exhibiton Arctic Fox - a childreens guidance".
The project is about three characters, all being foxes but two of which are arctic foxes (blue male and white female) and the third is a red fox (Mikki) from Hakkebakkeskogen in Norway (Thorbjörn Egner). They all meet in The Arctic Fox Centre, they get to know each other and the childreen learn about the differences and similarities of the species and adaptions to various habitats and seasons by their conversation as cartoons and puppies.
The project will be developing throughout the year but hopefully we can bring those interesting foxes alive already this summer, thanks to the Westfjords Cultural Association grant.

Álftafjörður (Swan fjord), where the little village Súðavík is located, you find various wildlife, both on land and water. The arctic tern colony at Langeyri pond is busy and noisy. They join their breeding grounds with eiders, greylag goose, whooper swans and red throated loons. Where rivers fall into the sea, you can see harlequin ducks and further out, long tailed ducks, sometimes a great northern loon or even a king eider. At and around Arnarneshamar cliff (oldest road tunnel in Iceland) you find numbers of fulmars and cormorants, sometimes accompanied by shags.
In the fjord you see various waders, such as oystercatchers, ringed plovers, golden plovers, purple sandpipers, dunlins, redshanks, snipes, red necked phalarope and whimbrels.
You could even spot a gyrfalcon, merlin or sea eagle along the shore and we have had a few grey herons in the fjord for several months but the species is not a resident bird in Iceland. Seals are common near the shore and look up on bypassers with curious faces, sometimes resting lazily on stones. Late summer and fall, a minke whale or two are a common sight on the sea, even close to land....
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We are now preparing the opening in June 12th and the carpenters, electrician and plumbers are working hard to finish the house in time.
The exhibition is in full progress and even though many of the obstacles we will use are still at „home" (a private property), some things are already in house (at least the director´s house). We just received 6 stuffed foxes from Þorvaldur Björnsson but Guðmundur Jakobsson has provided the animals (from regular hunting), with a little help from other hunters. Amongst the stuffed foxes are one sleeping white fox in winter fur, one playful almost full grown pup of white colour morph and then a winter fox from the rare beige colour morph, sometimes called „landrover". Furthermore, a female in blue winter fur, just sitting and a big male in winter fur of the blue morph with a lot of white/silver in its fur and seabird (winter custom) in its mouth.
We have got a lot of great gifts for the exhibition, as well as many borroved objects: for example two photos (Þórður Sigurðsson and Michelle Nielson), guestbook (Gunna Beta leather smith), fox tang (Ólafur Ö. Ólafsson), a gun (Helgi Bjarnason) and a drying mechanism for preparing fox skin (Kristján from Hvítanes).

Last weekend there was an exhibition in Perlan, Reykjavík - where all regions of Iceland were introduced as "The Pearls of Iceland". Of course the West fjords are the most precious pearls and The Arctic Fox Centre consider itself as one.
We took two of our four legged friends with us (stuffed arctic foxes of various colors) and they fitted well in amongst old driftwood and sea rocks.

We recommend a tour around West fjords since it is without a doubt one of the greatest pearl of Icelandic nature:
Beautiful and various landscape, huge bird cliffs, guidance on mountains and fjords, kayaks, sailboat, hiking, skiing, jogging, bird watching, and not least: the paradise of birds and arctic foxes - Hornstrandir Nature Reserve.
- not to mention local food, music and exhibitions with natural and historical heritage, in each region; vikings, predators, monsters and magic..

 

We just got great photos of arctic foxes from Johann Oli Hilmarsson, who is well known for his bird photos. One of the pictures is of a „naked fox" or an arctic fox with hypotrichosis disease, which makes the foxes loose a majority of its fur. This disease is only known in Icelandic foxes, it is not genetic but the pups get infected by their mother. Fox pups with the disease have higher mortality rate than other fox pups but it is not known to affect mortality of adult foxes. Naked foxes have higher energy demands than other foxes and thus spend more time finding food. The females with the disease have no problem finding mates and they are even more fertile than other female foxes. The males, however, rarely manage to keep a territory or a mate, possibly because they use all their energy in feeding to prevent heat loss.

Reference:
Pall Hersteinsson, Gudmundur Georgsson, Stefán Adalsteinsson & Eggert Gunnarsson (2007). The naked fox: hypotrichosis in arctic foxes (Alopex lagopus). Polar Biol (2007) 30:1047-1058

the year 2010 has been nominated as a Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations. The Icelandic Ministry of Environment has chosen April 25th as the day of the Envirionment but the first Icelandic Nature Scientist, Sveinn Pálsson, was born on this day the year 1762.
Unfortunately, The Arctic Fox Centre has no program to celebrate the day of the Environment but we recommend people in Westfjords to visit Ósvör with Nature History Institute in Bolungarvik. They will show you the "live in the shore" from 11.-12 and Ósvör museum will be open too.

In Reykjavík, Askja, the Nature Science building at The University of Iceland will be open from 10.30 - 15.00 on Saturday April 24th. and there are lots of interesting things for the whole family.

We wish you a great summer 2010 and don´t be afraid to visit the Westfjords of Iceland and the totally unique nature and wildlife

 

These days The Arctic Fox Centre is visiting the elementary school of Sudavik and educating on Icelandic mammals with special regards to wood mice and arctic foxes. This project is the centre´s contribution to the society and a part of our policy. The elementary school is a whole stage school with students from 1st to 10th grade, grouped into 3 stages. All age classes have been visited once and the kids were amazing. We will continue and visit all classes again during this week. We have got a lot of new ideas and comments which we can bear in mind while designing the Arctic Fox Centre´s Exhibition.