Swift foxes to be reintroduced to Fort Belknap area

Swift foxes, an animal that has been absent from the Fort Belknap area for many years, is set to be reintroduced to the area via a project by the Smithsonian Biology Conservation Institute in conjunction with the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

The team is holding a Zoom meeting Tuesday about the project for the Fort Belknap Indian Community.

Hila Shamon, a research biologist at the institute, which has been involved with a number of similar reintroductions, is leading the project, which she said, requires extensive planning, evaluating the area’s prey availability, threats, the condition of the land etc., to determine if reintroduction is possible.

Shamon said Fort Belknap has been wonderful to work with as well as intellectually engaging.

“The Fort Belknap community has really been a beacon for our conservation efforts in the region,” she said. “They’ve been super welcoming, and they have very unique ideas.”

Swift foxes, the smallest canine species in North America, has seen its historic range in the Great Plains area drop significantly over the past century eventually falling to a 20th of its original size, though it has since rebounded to about 40 percent, in part thanks to reintroduction efforts like this one.

“Swift fox used to be quite abundant across the Great Plains as a whole, but in the early 1900’s up to the middle of the last century there was a lot of predator control and a lot of rodent control and a lot of land was converted to agriculture,” Shamon said.

She said the foxes, which are far too small to be a threat to any livestock, often got caught in traps set for animals like coyotes, their main predator, or die due to the poisons used to kill rats, one of their primary food sources. This combined with general habitat destruction are what lead to their current state.

Shamon said in studying the Fort Belknap area to evaluate the feasibility of reintroduction they found practically no foxes south of the Milk River, though there are populations further north and south, populations which may become connected if the reintroduction goes well.

She said the assessment done since late 2018, when they were asked by Fort Belknap to take over since American Prairie Reserve had to step back from the project, have left her and her team confident that they can accomplish their goal.

“I’m super optimistic,” she said, “if we weren’t very confident that this would be a success, we would not go forward. Reintroductions are extremely costly they need a big staff, a lot of planning, and it’s not just me it’s a whole team of 30 people that’s feeling pretty good about this plan.”

Shamon said foxes used in this reintroduction will be taken from Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas, which have been cooperating with the project. She said special care is being taken not to damage the populations of the areas they are taking foxes from.

The project will ultimately involve introducing about 40 foxes to the Fort Belknap area once a year for five years, with the first batch of the animals coming from Wyoming and being set free later this year, she said.

The foxes will be monitored for some time using GPS tags so researchers can get a good idea of where populations dens are, after which tracking will stop and the population will be allowed to continue activities with less scrutiny required.

She said she’s hoping the project will eventually be able to collaborate with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to increase the range of their efforts to study and monitor the animals, but a lot of that is still dependent of the project’s future funding.

Shamon said the COVID-19 pandemic has made the project more difficult than anticipated, but for now things are still on track.

“It’s definitely been nerve wracking, because anything can change at any given moment,” she said.

Shamon’s team has developed safety protocols that she’s confident will protect people from the virus and from spreading it, which she said, is especially important when working with people at Fort Belknap.

Aaniiih Nakoda College will be hosting a live seminar on the animals and their impending reintroduction Tuesday at 1 p.m. where Shamon will provide more information and answer questions at https://ancollege.zoom.us/j/94972344941?pwd=T0pNOExaV3hGdmMvU3NOc2NwaVB1QT09 .

Meeting ID: 949 7234 4941

Passcode: 696043

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