An Arctic fox in its pure white winter coat licks its fur after waking up from a nap in a snowdrift along Colleen Lake in Alaska’s Arctic North Slope. (Patrick J. Endres / AlaskaPhotoGraphics.com)
The Arctic fox is a small animal that inhabits the northern coast and offshore icepack in Alaska. It has a cryptic coloring phase shared by other animals in the Arctic, (like the snowshoe hare, ptarmigan, and short-tailed weasel), in which their color changes to a pure white during the winter months. Unfortunately, I’ve seen the Arctic fox population decline in the region of the Arctic accessible by the James Dalton Highway, and scientists suggest this is in part due to resource competition from the larger and more dominant red fox that have used the road corridor opportunistically to extend their range.
