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Arctic fox hikes from Europe to North America

Discussion in 'Wildlife & Nature Conservation' started by DavidBrown, 2 Jul 2019.

  1. DavidBrown

    DavidBrown Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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  2. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    It's been corrected, it was 4 months, not 76 days. Still!
     
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  3. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    Where has it been "corrected"? The number of days from leaving Spitsbergen (26 March) to reaching Ellesmere Island (10 June) was 76 days. That's the period during which the fox was moving from Svalbard to Canada. Until 26 March the fox had never left Spitsbergen. The four months which you've seen as a "correction" was just the larger period discussed in the paper (linked below), from 1 March to 1 July - but that isn't the length of time the fox took to travel the distance.

    The paper is here: View of Arctic fox dispersal from Svalbard to Canada: one female’s long run across sea ice
     
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  4. Mbwamwitu

    Mbwamwitu Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Can we anthropomorphize a little and call this fox the world's greatest climate crusader? This is like the vulpine equivalent of one of those awareness-raising marches or hunger strikes.
     
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  5. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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  6. Great Argus

    Great Argus Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    It's impressive how so small an animal can travel so far so fast! Averaged 26 miles (46.3 km) a day!
     
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  7. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    But the "correction" is wrong (in-as-much as it is confusing the tracking period with the actual length of time the fox took to move between Spitsbergen and Ellesmere Island). That specific article in your link, for example, says the fox arrived on Ellesmere Island on 1 July while the actual paper quite clearly says that it arrived there on 10 June. The 1 July date is when the tracking period ended, not when the fox arrived there.
     
    Last edited: 4 Jul 2019
  8. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    The 2,737 miles in the headline was traveled over 4 months.
     
  9. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    I suggest you actually read the paper, rather than blindly repeating the same information from a news article reporting on the paper and insisting this comprises a correction of the information in the initially-posted news article :p

    From the very first paragraph of the abstract.....

    A young female left Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago, Norway) on 26 March 2018 and reached Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, 76 days later, after travelling a cumulative distance of 3506 km, bringing her ca. 1789 km away (straight-line distance) from her natal area. The total cumulative distance travelled during the entire tracking period, starting when she left her natal area on 1 March 2018 and ending when she settled on Ellesmere Island on 1 July 2018, was 4415 km.

    The first article posted by @DavidBrown explicitly discusses the distance of 3506 km or 2178 miles covered within the 76 days of active travel.

    The second article posted by yourself discusses the distance of 4415 km or 2737 miles covered within the entire duration of the tracking period, including movement prior to leaving Spitsbergen and movement subsequent to reaching Ellesmere Island. As such, the information in the second article is NOT a correction of the information found in the first article.
     
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  10. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    Have you read the actual paper?

    Let me put it like this: I'm walking through Central Park and someone darts me and puts a radio-collar on me. I wake up, wonder what the radio-collar is for but it matches my shoes so I just leave it on, and I continue my walk. Then I spend five days checking out the various zoos around New York, take a bus across to San Diego and spend another five days checking out the zoos there. Then I fly home from Los Angeles to New Zealand. Did it take me thirteen days to get from the USA to New Zealand? No, that was the length of time during the total tracking period.
     
  11. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Have either of you read MY posts? I already apologized and said the way you worded it, didn't need a correction. I also explained why the article I referenced, and many others out there, did issue a correction. But sure, continue to attack me.
     
  12. TeaLovingDave

    TeaLovingDave Moderator Staff Member 10+ year member

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    We're not attacking you :p :) we are trying to explain that the article you referenced is reporting on a different aspect of the paper, and not issuing a correction to the original article.
     
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  13. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    It's not coming across that way. I'm aware of what it's reporting. Most articles originally say the 2,700 miles was done in 76 days, which resulted in corrections being issued.
     
  14. ThylacineAlive

    ThylacineAlive Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    That's not at all what you were saying:
    Regardless, no corrections were made because the initial paper never got anything wrong. If anything, a single correction had to be made to the article you posted, which you originally thought was the correct information. That's what Chlidonias and TLD were pointing out to you.

    ~Thylo
     
  15. TinoPup

    TinoPup Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    You're not understanding me, at all. I give up.
     
  16. Jurek7

    Jurek7 Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Just in case: was it confirmed that the collar is still on a live fox?
     
  17. Pleistohorse

    Pleistohorse Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Pretty cool. I imagine this is how the foxes made it to Iceland in the past. Adds weight to those suggesting the ancestors of the Falkland’s Wolf made it to the Falklands by crossing the ice in the distant past. Or Isle Royale’s Gray Wolves for that matter...except for the distances involved I guess...the Isle Royale wolves probably made that crossing in just a few hours at most.