跑速惊人的北极狐

科学家们惊讶发现，北极狐在短短76天内从挪威跑到加拿大，全程2000英里

How’s this for a road trip? A young Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) has trekked across the ice from Norway to Canada in a mammoth 3,506-kilometer (2,176-mile) journey in record time.

这一路它是怎么做到的?一只年轻的北极狐(Vulpes lagopus)以创纪录的速度，穿越挪威到加拿大的冰面，完成了3506公里(2176英里)的长途跋涉。

Scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute used a GPS tracker attached to a collar to follow her as she left the Svalbard Archipelago on March 26, 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada just over 2 months later. She made the journey in just 76 days, meaning she was traveling at an average rate of 46.3 kilometers (28.7 miles) a day – that’s more than a marathon every day for over 10 weeks.

2018年3月26日，挪威极地研究所的科学家们用一个系在项圈上的GPS追踪器跟踪她离开斯瓦尔巴特群岛，两个多月后到达加拿大努纳维特的埃尔斯米尔岛。她只花了76天就完成了这趟旅程，这意味着她每天的平均速度为46.3公里(28.7英里)——这比连续10周每天跑一场马拉松还多。

Reported in the journal Polar Research, the researchers write that this is “among the longest dispersal events ever recorded for an Arctic fox.” It’s also the fastest movement rate recorded for this species, 1.4 times faster than the previous record-holder, an adult male that was tracked in Alaska.

研究人员在《极地研究》(Polar Research)杂志上撰文称，这是“有记录以来北极狐追踪时间最长的事件之一”。这也是该物种有记录以来的最快迁徙速度，比此前在阿拉斯加追踪的成年雄性记录保持者快1.4倍。

Unfortunately, the GPS collar stopped working on February 6, 2019, so the team no longer know where the intrepid fox is. Nevertheless, the research team managed to gather enough data over the course of 2018 to detail its incredible Arctic hike.

不幸的是，GPS项圈在2019年2月6日停止工作，所以研究小组没能知道这只勇敢的狐狸之后去了哪里。尽管如此，研究团队还是在2018年收集了足够的数据，详细描述了这次令人难以置信的北极之旅。

"We didn't think it was true at first. Could the fox have been found dead and now onboard a boat? But no, there are no boats that go so far up in the ice, so we just had to keep up with what the fox did,” Eva Fuglei, study author from the Norwegian Polar Institute, said in a statement.

“起初我们并不认为这是真的。这只狐狸会不会已经死在了哪条船上?不对，没有船能在冰上走这么远，所以我们只能跟上这只狐狸的脚步。”挪威极地研究所的研究作者伊娃·福格蕾在一份声明中说。

The study notes that this individual will have to adjust to some big dietary changes now they are in the Canadian Arctic, as the population there tend to eat lemmings and small mammals, rather than the marine-based diet they eat in Svalbard.

该研究指出，由于加拿大北极地区的居民倾向于吃旅鼠和小型哺乳动物，而不是他们在斯瓦尔巴群岛吃的以海洋为基础的食物，这种狐狸将不得不适应一些重大的饮食变化。

While this might sound like a feel-good story of an adventurous fox, the story also unpins the importance of addressing the effects climate change, and the shrinking of the polar ice caps, is having on animals. Ice is vital for foxes and other creatures to venture around the Arctic and between continents. Arctic foxes have already become marooned on Iceland due to the demise of the polar ice and if things continue as they are, the population in Svalbard could become completely isolated too.

虽然这听起来像是一个冒险的狐狸的故事，但这个故事也揭示了应对气候变化和极地冰帽缩小对动物影响的重要性。冰对于狐狸和其他生物在北极和大陆之间的活动是至关重要的。由于极地冰层的消失，北极狐已经被困在冰岛的荒岛上，如果事情继续这样下去，斯瓦尔巴特群岛上的北极狐种群也会完全被孤立。

“If the sea ice disappears, the archipelago of Svalbard will be isolated,” confirmed Fuglei.

“如果海冰消失，斯瓦尔巴群岛将被孤立。”福格里证实。

“This is another example of how important sea ice is to wildlife in the Arctic," added Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment, Ola Elvestuen. "The warming in the north is frighteningly fast. We must cut emissions quickly to prevent the sea ice from disappearing all summer.”

“这是海冰对北极野生动物重要性的另一个例子，”挪威气候和环境部长奥拉·埃尔维斯图恩(Ola Elvestuen)补充说。“北方的升温速度快得吓人。我们必须迅速减少排放，防止整个夏天海冰消失。”