Time for Nature

Swift fox: Making a speedy recovery

May 31, 2004

Grasslands National Park of Canada

The rapid change of Canada's grasslands to farmland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wiped out many prairie carnivores. They will never make a comeback on the Canadian prairie. However, the combined efforts of a number of agencies in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan has brought back a small wild dog that vanished from Canada 75 years ago.

No place to call home

Swift fox ( Vulpes velox )
© W. Lynch, Parks Canada, 2003

The swift fox, once an essential part of the grassland ecosystem of North America's great plains, lost its grassland habitat to farms, roads, towns and cities and then was wiped out inadvertently during coyote and wolf eradication programs. Last seen in Canada in the 1930s, this cat-sized animal is making a comeback in southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan thanks to a substantial recovery program involving federal and provincial governments, environmental groups and universities.

Grasslands National Park of Canada in southern Saskatchewan has been an active member of the Canadian Swift Fox Recovery Team. This team is working to re-establish a permanent population of swift fox in parts of its original homelands.

A fresh start

Efforts to reintroduce North America's smallest fox into Canada began in 1983 when foxes imported from the United States and bred at Alberta's Cochrane Ecological Institute were released. Between 1983 and 1997, 942 swift foxes were released in Alberta and Saskatchewan , including wild-born animals brought in from Wyoming. Despite bad weather and natural predators such as coyotes, bobcats and eagles, many have survived and have begun reproducing in the wild. Counts done in 1996-1997 and 2000-2001 showed that the swift fox population had more than doubled, from 280 to about 650 in five years.

Still an endangered species

Mixed-grass prairie, Grasslands National Park of Canada
© A. Cornellier, Parks Canada, 1988

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada upgraded (downlisted) the swift fox from extirpated to endangered in 1999. The swift fox population is still small and is vulnerable to disease out breaks and severe weather events such as prolonged droughts. The success of Canada's reintroduction effort has encouraged similar programs in Montana and South Dakota .

Publicly managed reserves of mixed-grass prairie are too small to succeed at swift fox conservation on their own. Fortunately, livestock ranching on privately managed native rangelands is compatible with swift fox conservation.

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