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Defenders Magazine
Species Spotlight: The Swift Fox
You’d think that their big ears would slow them down, but the aptly-named swift fox can nearly reach 40 mph in a sprint. Weighing about five pounds, and standing about a foot tall, the swifts are among the smallest wild dogs in North America. Their fleetness and hearing make up for their small stature, though, allowing them to track and chase down rabbits, prairie dogs, mice and other prey.
When Meriwether Lewis first described the swift fox on his famous journey in 1805, the animals were abundant throughout much of the West. Unfortunately, their great speed didn’t allow them to outrun habitat loss, trappers, and those, including government agents, who poisoned the small animals along with wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs and other “pest” species.
By the latter half of the twentieth century, the swift fox had been wiped out of 90 percent of its historical habitat. Despite the losses, the federal government in 1995 denied the swift fox endangered species status. So, in 1998, conservationists took up the slack. In one of the first collaborative, private attempts to reintroduce a missing carnivore, Defenders worked with the Blackfeet nation to bring swift foxes back to Montana. With at least 90 swift foxes now firmly established on the tribe’s lands, efforts by other groups are now under way to reintroduce the animals in other states and in Canada, where they were declared extinct in 1978.
If these efforts are successful, you may see the speedy animals zooming by during your next trip to the northern plains.
