Swift Fox

The Swift Fox gets its name from its speed, travelling through the prairies at up to 60 kilometres an hour. During the 20^th century, the Swift Fox disappeared entirely from the wild in Canada, mostly due to habitat destruction. In 1983, the Cochrane Ecological Institute, in partnership with the Canadian Wildlife Service, the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the University of Calgary, the World Wildlife Fund and Agriculture Canada, initiated a larger program to reintroduce the fox to parts of its former range in Canada. Most of the animals introduced came from the wild in the United States or were bred in captivity in Canada by the Institute using stock imported from the U.S.

"The Swift Fox reintroduction program has been one of the most successful canid reintroductions in the world," says Joel Nicholson, Non-Game biologist with Alberta Fish and Wildlife, one of the participants in the reintroduction program. A 2005-2006 census of Swift Fox populations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the state of Montana counted 1,162 Swift Foxes, predominantly born in the wild.

But this is still a very low number and although it is no longer considered extirpated, the Swift Fox remains an endangered species in Canada. Habitat protection is one of the most important ways to ensure this animal’s long-term survival and NCC’s landscape-approach conservation in prairie areas such as the Sage Creek Uplands of Alberta and Saskatchewan’s Frenchman River is helping with that. Already NCC has protected over 40,000 acres of prairie landscape, some of which is suitable habitat for the Swift Fox.

With your help, we can continue to protect habitat for species such as the Swift Fox, Piping Plover, Yellow Montane Violet, Eastern Hog-nosed Snake. Click here to donate today.