Arctic fox on view at zoo’s Northern Trail
The male arctic fox that made his way to the Port of Seattle by stowing away on a trash container ship from the tiny, remote Aleutian island of Shemya, is now on public view at Woodland Park Zoo’s award-winning Northern Trail exhibit. The fox has been off view in quarantine at the zoo’s animal health hospital since he arrived at the zoo in June. Very thin on arrival, he is now in good weight and condition.

The arctic fox, weighing 6 to 10 pounds, is a furry mammal that lives in the far north, in the tundra, and in coastal areas of North America, Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia and Siberia. Found farther north than any other land mammal, it travels more extensively than any terrestrial animal other than humans.

Arctic foxes come in two distinct color “phases”: the white and the blue phases. White phase foxes shed their brown or gray summer coats and become snow white in winter. Blue phase foxes, like the Arctic fox at Woodland Park Zoo, are also brown or gray in summer, but turn a steely blue-gray in winter. In the summer, the fox feeds primarily on lemmings, other rodents, fish, birds and even berries. In the winter, it may follow wolves or polar bears in hopes of eating scraps left behind. While the demand for fox fur is down over recent years, the average annual take by trappers in Alaska is about 4,000 pelts.