Native Americans Help Bring Back Swift Fox
Assiniboine and Sioux Bring Fox Back to Fort Peck Reservation
Aug 29, 2009
The swift fox (Vulpes velox), endemic to North America, is being helped by the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes on the Fort Peck Reservation. Once relatively common across the Great Plains, the swift fox had disappeared from Montana by 1969.
Life of a Small Predator
According to the Defenders of Wildlife, this well-named cat-sized predator weighs five to seven pounds and can run down its prey at speeds up to 25 miles per hour. It has large ears and a tan coat with black markings on its face and the tip of the tail.
Swift foxes are nocturnal, spending more time underground than any other canid (member of the dog family). Their small size makes them vulnerable to predators such as eagles and badgers, so remaining hidden during daytime and coming out at night protects them from such threats. They hunt small prey such as ground squirrels, prairie dogs, mice, amphibians, and reptiles and also feed on berries and seeds.
Mating occurs during the wintertime, and four to five kits are born 51 days later. The kits leave home in the fall.
Threatened or Endangered Species?
The swift fox proved to be no match in the past for poison left out for coyotes and wolves, traps set for other animals, or the plowing up of its habitat to make room for farms. Because it is so secretive, scientists had a hard time coming up with data to decide if this species should be added to the Endangered Species list. In 2001 it was decided that while its population and range had been significantly reduced, the swift fox was not a candidate for endangered species ranking in the United States, although it is on Canada's list of endangered species. Today, it lives on about 40 percent of its old stomping grounds, mostly in scattered populations from Texan northward in rural areas, including along what's called the High Line in Montana, the stretch of prairie that borders with Canada, and northward into the Canadian prairies.
Indians Help Bring Back a Species
Reporter Brett French writes in the Missoulian of a $247,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help expand the range of this rare predator. With the cooperation of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes on the Fort Peck Reservation, thirty or so swift foxes from north-central Montana are being taken eastward to the area around Little Porcupine Creek north of the town of Frazer, Montana.
Farther south, the Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribes are also looking at the possibility of bringing this graceful predator back to their reservations as well. Leonard Bighorn, wildlife technician for the Assiniboine and Sioux, says, "Our goal is to be that little, small link between Canada, South Dakota and Wyoming." If these efforts are successful, the swift fox could once again roam the prairies from north to south in the state of Montana, connecting the Montana population with that in eastern Wyoming.
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