Details on swift fox reintroduction discussed during seminar

In a Tuesday seminar held via Zoom, by Aaniiih Nakoda College, Research Biologist at the Smithsonian Biology Conservation Institute Hila Shamon presented details about the Institute's impending reintroduction of swift foxes to the Fort Belknap area, a program she is leading.

The project, originally being run by the American Prairie Reserve in conjunction with the Fort Belknap Indian community, aims to create a populations of swift foxes, an animal that has been absent from the area for many years.

Shamon said the community at Fort Belknap has been wonderful to work with on this project and thanked them for agreeing to work with her and her team.

"The Fort Belknap community has really been a beacon for our conservation efforts in the region," she said in an interview earlier this week. "They've been super welcoming, and they have very unique ideas."

She said the reintroduction has required lengthy preparation and evaluation due to the complicated nature of the project.

"The first step is to discuss if a reintroduction is even appropriate," she said. "Is it really gone from that landscape? What would it mean for the local community to reintroduce this species?"

Shamon said the assessment for the project took two years and involved intense study of the land, in part to see if the species was totally gone from the area, which by all indication it was.

After the assessment was complete, they used data on the species collected by the larger scientific community to find out what a viable population would look like, examining things like survival rate, reproduction rates, and predicting possible changes and challenges like disease break outs, and rough winters.

They then created models for reintroduction and evaluated the probability of their success with a minimum threshold of a 90 percent chance of creating a viable population that will last 100 years without the need for intervention beyond introduction.

Then the team gathered expert on the animals themselves, representatives from federal and state environmental agencies, as well as Native American leaders from Fort Belknap and other communities that have seen successful swift fox reintroductions to present potential plans and see if they are feasible.

After that, they created a game plan for where the animals would come from settling on using foxes taken from the wild in Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas, making sure to coordinate with those states to make sure that they trap foxes from high density areas and at the optimal time so as not to damage the populations already there.

"The absolute last thing we want to do is hurt existing populations," Shamon said.

During the presentation, she said the team will be heading to Wyoming later in the week to start trapping with the goal of brining back 40 to 50 foxes, which will be kept in soft release pens for a few days. The team will do this once a year for five years, alternating the states the animals come from each year.

She said this is a good time of year to trap as juvenile foxes are just starting to leave their parents' dens to go off on their own.

Shamon said they wanted to use soft release pens in order to reduce the animals' stress levels before sending them out into the wild again, and chose to put the pens over abandoned prairie dog burrows in order to give the foxes a familiar environment, as they live in similar dens.

Tribal Wildlife Biologist for Fort Belknap Tim Vosburgh said he would be the caretaker for the foxes as they go through quarantine before being put in the soft release pens.

A ceremony for the first release will be held Sept. 14, but Shamon said plans may change based on the evolving pandemic situation and there were still things to work out.

She said the foxes will be monitored through the year using GPS tags so researchers and track them and observe their den making behaviors until winter.

The team will then use scent stations to draw foxes to certain areas and study their DNA by extracting it from their scat.

One of the stated goals of this reintroduction is to connect the populations of the swift foxes that live to the south in Wyoming and to the north in Canada, both of which have been slowly pushing into Montana.

She said having these relatively disjointed populations can be dangerous, potentially causing genetic bottlenecks and resulting in populations whose DNA is to similar to breed without risk of birth defects. But connecting these two populations so they can interbreed will prevent that and lead to a healthier stable population overall.

Shamon said the population to the north seems to have shown an interest in crossing the Milk River, but the lack of an existing population, especially potential mates, causes members of the mostly monogamous species to turn back around even when they do make it over the river.

"If you were looking for a spouse you wouldn't go to a place devoid of people," she said.

Shamon said by studying the DNA of the animals after they've had some time out in the wild will allow researchers to track offspring and pedigree and to see how the animals are mating.

"If year two comes around and things are not going the way we thought, we have the data so we can go back and reassess and fine-tune our protocols," she said.

Shamon and Vosburgh said biodiversity is always good for an environment and the reintroduction of these animals also has the chance to bring more balance to the local ecosystem.

Shamon said this is very much an ongoing process and her team will be keeping an eye on the population and will make adjustments according to the data they obtain this year.

She said she also wants to get the community involved and encouraged people living in the area to report any swift foxes they see using a short survey the team created but, warned that the foxes can sometimes be mistaken with juvenile coyotes, their main predator.

Shamon said the foxes have much longer tails and have distinctive black marks on their faces not seen in coyotes.

She said the team is also interested in recruiting people to set up camera traps to help monitor the animals as well and is offering opportunities for students to get involved with the project.

Shamon said she is very optimistic about the plan despite the complications caused by the pandemic.