The scientists compared three fox populations in different environments. Foxes on the small Russian Commander Island of Mednyi fed almost exclusively on sea birds, with some foxes eating seal carcasses. In Iceland, foxes living on the coast ate sea birds whereas those living inland ate rodents and non-marine birds.

In all three environments different levels of mercury were present in their hair. Foxes living in coastal habitats such as Iceland and Mednyi Island exhibited high levels of mercury.

What does this mean for the foxes?
Using museum skin samples from the Commander Islands, the researchers could show that the foxes suffered exposure to mercury for a long time. The researchers confirmed that the source of contamination was their food, as they measured high mercury levels in the prey of foxes such as seals and sea birds.

However, the inland Arctic fox populations of Iceland had low mercury levels. Thus, living inland and eating rodents and non-marine birds instead of eating prey that feeds from the sea protected the inland foxes from mercury exposure. This may have health and conservation implications. The Mednyi Island foxes are almost an opposite example to the inland Icelandic fox population. They live on a small island with no rodents or alternative food source to seals or sea birds. They suffered a tremendous population crash and while the population is currently stable, it is very small and juvenile foxes in particular show high mortality rates. Foxes of all ages exhibit low body weight and have poor coat condition.

"When going into this project we thought that an introduced pathogen would explain the poor condition of the foxes and their high mortality but after extensive screening, we did not find anything", says Alex Greenwood, principal investigator of the study.
Instead, the researchers began to suspect that something else was at play.
"If pathogens were not the cause, we thought perhaps pollutants could be involved. We thought of mercury because it has been reported in high concentration in other Arctic vertebrates also in remote areas and mercury intoxication is known to increase mortality in mammals. As mercury can have negative effects on overall health, particularly in young individuals, and as we knew that Mednyi foxes were exclusively feeding on potentially contaminated sources, we wanted to see whether contamination with mercury depended on feeding ecology and hence might have been the crucial factor for the population decline on Mednyi Island", comments Gabriele Treu, one of the lead authors of the study.

As it turned out, the observed high mercury demonstrated a tight association with feeding ecology and geographical distribution of the foxes.

In terms of conservation and long term population health for the entire arctic food chain of carnivores, mercury pollution must be stopped.

the paper is found here:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060879

Publication:
Bocharova N, Treu G, Czirják GÁ, Krone O, Stefanski V, Wibbelt G, Unnsteinsdóttir ER, Hersteinsson P, Schares G, Doronina L, Goltsman M, Greenwood AD (2013): Correlates between Feeding Ecology and Mercury Levels in Historical and Modern Arctic Foxes (Vulpes lagopus). PLOS ONE 8(5): e60879. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060879

- please find information about the volunteering program, requirements and availability here

- hope to be able to offer a lot of volunteers some work ..

For all volunteers:

The Arctic Fox Centre is a small, non-to-be-profit organization which relies on grant, access fee and café visitors as income to run the project. The Centre promotes and participates in researching and developing sustainable wildlife tourism in Westfjords.
We also run a nice visiting centre, district information centre, event house and a café. We grow our own vegetables and all served dishes are home made so many hands are needed to keep the role of our program. We have two little orphan arctic fox cubs at the centre and we conduct studies on foxes and tourist in the remote peninsula of Hornstrandir as well as a little peninsula of Hestur nearby. Two main events; our anniversary on June 9th and Blueberry festival in August 16th - 18th call for many helpers who like having fun with all the people who come and enjoy this weekend with us. The summer is a busy period and there is always need for helping hands in whatever you are good in: writing, photographing, guiding, serving, baking, cooking, decorating, cleaning, indoor, outdoor .... endless opportunities for clever people with independent skills and ideas..

We do not have any accommodation available at the centre. However, we offer free usage of the local camping place, ca 800m away from the centre. We offer a free soup and bread and nice coffee for our volunteers and there is a small grocery shop in the village. We work by spontaneous schedule on the volunteering process at the centre - meaning that independent volunteers with various skills can find themselves many useful things to do. For those who want to stay longer periods, we have access to apartment that can be shared with others for low budget.

More information about the projects are on the schedule

we thank you for your interest and look forward to see you at the centre

Ester and the other foxes 

Ester, our director, is now located in Tromso, N-Norway but we have helpers around who keep the centre open for visitors. We have had several good guests this winter and it´s good to see that people are willing to travel in this time of the year. Tromso is much further north than Westfjords of Iceland but people are fine with snowy roads, darkness and bad weather. We who live here in Westfjords should be more willing to tell others how great it is to be here in the winter time. The beauty of a still and calm winter day in Feb-Apr is one of the most magnificent experiences one can have. Furthermore, the winter moon, shining on the white mountain tops, mirrored in the calm fjords, decorated by northern lights - this is a breathtaking sight that everyone should have a chance to see and experience. We should remind us every now and then how lucky we are - and remember to tell the others to come and visit.
There are some opportunities for those who want to visit Westfjords in the winter, for example Heydalur and Borea Adventures but Fossavatn ski marathon and Aldrei fór ég suður are also quite exciting winter events. We in The Arctic Fox Centre are also delighted to hear about a new guesthouse in our village, that will hopefully be open next winter. Then we can offer more winter adventures in our area and we look forward. Ofcourse we are working in our matters all winter and we held several events during the Advent. 

This year will be busy at the centre if everything will go as planned. We are organizing the research and volunteering programs for the summer. There are so many applications that unfortunately we will not be able to invite all of those who have applied. We have heard of some booking sin the fox watching tours and wildlife photographing seminar. The arctic fox monitoring program will proceed in collaboration with research institutes, the government and municipalities. The Hornstrandir monitoring will also continue and now we want to collect dropping samples for DNA analysis that we can preserve until later. This method has been conducted in Sweden and Norway where the species is endangered and difficult to get life-samples.
We have applied for some funds to be able to continue research and perhaps invite internship students from abroad. We have a lot of projects and some data to work on and if we can finance some research, we could start many interesting projects.

The Arctic Fox Café and the Culture Loft will also be busy this year and we will start early next summer with breakfast buffet. Conserts and art exhibitions as well as our puppet theatre and other interesting cultural events will be operating all summer. We have been told that BBC knows about us and our project and hopefully they will decide to document Icelandic arctic foxes and help us spread the knowledge.

Next fall we will proudly house The International Arctic Biology Conference where scientists from various countries will visit us and introduce the newest arctic fox research results.

We are working on the annual report of 2012 and it looks like 15.000 guests have visited The Arctic Fox Centre since we opened in June 2010. It is not much in global respect but if you think of the fact that 180 people live in Sudavik, we are proud and thankful for all the visits we have got.

You can hear more about us in BBC broadcast, channel 4 on February the 5th - guess it´s around 10PM. We are proud of our little project and we will do our best to proceed in the same way.