Swedish and Norwegian Foxes Were Imported Into The UK:What We Know

 There is talk about the Norwegian foxes said to have been imported for hunting that were larger and faster than our mountain foxes. It has to be remembered that the Old British Mountain/Greyhound fox (of which we have a taxidermy example) stood next to a coyote (which we have a taxidermy example of) stands well above it. So a fox larger than a mountain fox seems unlikely though until we can find examples we will put this statement with a question mark next to it.

There are three main canids in Norway -the arctic fox, the wolf and the Scandinavian red fox. The red fox is currently seen invasive in alpine land due to human activity and has put the arctic fox "under threat".

The Scandinavian red fox is not much larger than the European Red Fox we have as New foxes in the UK. So how were they bigger than our foxes. Faster and more resilient than our foxes?

Is it possible that like the UK and Western Europe that Norway had its own Old fox types? According to Wildlife online

"there are various records of foxes having been introduced from the European continent during the 19th century, presumably as numbers ran low for hunting. Scandinavian foxes were introduced to Scotland several times during the 1800s and there is a report of Spanish foxes being released into Epping Forest in 1884."

Also

"Early hunting literature suggests that foxes became more numerous and widely distributed between about 1750 and 1850, with a further population and range expansion between 1950 and 1965"

These people are in for a shock. What hunting literature since in the 1670s foxes were reported as "hard to find"??

I contacted Marc at Wildlife online:

"Hi.

I wondered whether you could answer a question about a comment on your wildlife website? You mention the importation of Swedish and Norwegian foxes into the UK in the 19th century and wondered whether you could tell me the source of the information?

Can't seem to find any references to this importation so any info welcome!

Regards Terry"

And Marc was kind enough to respond:

"Hi Terry.

Thanks very much for bringing this to my attention, and apologies for the delayed response - I had to trawl back through my notes. I presume this is in reference to:

"_Scandinavian foxes were introduced to Scotland several times during the 1800s... _"

"I have now removed that statement because it appears to be incorrect; or at least unsupported. Looking back at my notes it was based on a comment by Southern (1964) noting how:

"_ ... in Scotland Scandinavian V. v. vulpes also present owing to introductions_"

"Given we know from a number of sources that imported foxes were from Scandinavia, France, Spain and Holland and occurred at Leadenhall during the nineteenth century, it seemed reasonable that the "introductions" of which Southern spoke originated from Scandinavia during this period. It looks, however, like I did not follow up Southern's references when I originally wrote this in 2015. (Sloppy. Sorry.)

"Having revisited Southern (1964) today, I note that his references are Tetley (1941) and Hattingh (1956). I re-read my Tetley's paper this afternoon and see it does not support Southern's suggestion. Quite the contrary, in fact, as Tetley wrote, with reference to Wales, the Lake District and the Highlands:

"It is highly improbable that any foxes will have been introduced in such areas and, even if they have, they will not have been sufficient in numbers to affect the native stock."

"Sorry I couldn't be more help and thanks again for alerting me to the error.

Cheers,

Marc."

https://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/

In fact there were so many "little deals going on that even after 45 years I am still discovering things.

If we look at Norway we find in Field Sports of the North of Europe: Comprised in a Personal Narrative of a Residence in Sweden and Norway in the years 1827-28 (1831) by Llewelyn Lloyd we have the following:

"The crossed fox, which is larger and stronger, and is said to be more courageous than the common fox, appears also, to be only a variety. At any rate, some Norwegian naturalists say so, while others assert that it is a distinct species."

This is interesting in that it echoes the arguments in the UK regarding the Old foxes. Naturalists and hunters were clear that the Mountain, Hill and Cur foxes were three distinct types of Vulpes vulpes but others immediately argued back that they were not distinct species!

In The Red Paper 2022 Vol. I: Canids I explain that following Britain's separation from Europe the foxes here (like wolves) developed to live in various habitats. The Mountain or Greyhound fox filled the niche of the Jackal or coyote and the Hill fox was shorter, stouter and lived on hills and the Cur fox was living close to human habitation and was much smaller. These were environmental adaptions which would probably make the unique sub-species (we need DNA work carried out).

Foxes, of a large variety were also said to have been imported from Sweden.

Below some Swedish fox types from old literature.

I contacted experts in Sweden and Norway and Kjell Danell Professor emeritus in Wildlife Ecology at the Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umeå:

"Three varieties of red fox from Meves & Holmgren 1873. There are more varieties and the proportion varies over time and latitude. The most valuable was the black one. In general, the foxes in the north were darker brown and with more black, like 9815.

"Fur export (lynx, marten, arctic fox, beaver, wolverine, squirrel … ) from Sweden to countries in Europe including England was large and good for the economy. All skins were bought by the men of the kings and some were taken as skin. Therefore we have statistics from about 1550 to 1610 (Steckzen 1964). The main export of fox skins from Stockholm was annually 1 000 –3 600, also from other cities. These records do not involve living foxes only skins. "

Above: (c)2023 respective copyright owner. When I saw this I sat up. A Norwegian Mountain fox as it bore a strong resemblance to an illustration of a British mountain fox by Col. J. S. Talbot in his book Foxes At Home, (1906 )

Kjell also noted:

"I am not aware of any organized export of Swish foxes to UK during the last 300 years. However, there have most likely been exchange of predators between zoological gardens and interested zoologists, but not for planned releases.

"In the old Icelandic law from about 930 to 1264/64, when Iceland lost independence to Norway, there is a statement “owners of wolves and foxes should be responsible for their damages.” Most likely because single tame wolves and foxes were coming with the Wiking ships and caused damages to domestic animals on land. If no reason no law! There were no native foxes and wolves on Iceland. If we speculate such foxes may have now and then come to the North Atlantic islands including UK."

The Swedish Natural History Museum had no record of the large foxes but we can say the same about British museums:

"Hello!

"I have asked around at the museum, but we don’t have information about that here. Maybe you could try with the hunters association Jägareförbundet, e.g., Daniel Ligné

(daniel.ligne@jagareforbundet.se). They might know. Or with the mammal researchers Anders Angerbjörn (anders.angerbjorn@zoologi.su.se) or Kjell Danell (Kjell.Danell@slu.se).

Best regards / Didrik

Didrik Vanhoenacker, Biologist for public enquires, Natural History Museum"

While Anders Angerbjorn in Sweden responded:

"Hello,

"There is a newly published paper on the genetic relationship of the European red foxes.

"Next‐generation phylogeography resolves post‐glacial colonization patterns in a widespread carnivore, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), in Europe - McDevitt - - Molecular Ecology - Wiley Online Library

"But red foxes are known to vary in fur. There is also clear size trends within Sweden for example. So I think that the variation in the art can be explained by seasonal differences, winter fur, summer fur, and geographic differences. But there is no doubt that they are all red foxes.

Best regards"

By this time I had realised that a great deal of history needed to be uncovered as furs and their exporting would give no answers as the the size of the foxes and we had eye-witness accounts by 'sportsmen' who had seen British Mountain foxes as well as the Swedish and Norwegian foxes and could compare. Rather like 99% of British naturalists and zoologists being unaware of the Old British foxes because they never learnt about them and were simply taught dogma it seems that many in Europe are also unaware of Old type foxes.

All I can write about Swedish and Norwegian large foxes is that They existed. They were exported. They were hunted.

Everything from Norway gives the Red fox as invasive and threatening arctic foxes. There appears to be a very blinded look at foxes in Norway where only the arctic fox is seen to matter or be native.

Outside of its threat to arctic foxes this is the best mention of Red foxes to date:

"An epizootic of sarcoptic mange among red foxes Vulpes vulpes reached central Norway in 1976, and by 1986 it had spread to the whole country, resulting in a severe decline in the red fox population. We analyse the change in the hunting bags of the predator species red fox and pine marten Martes martes, and the prey species capercaillie Tetrao urogallus, black grouse Tetrao tetrix, mountain hare Lepus timidus and willow grouse Lagopus l. lagopus from the period prior to and during the mange epizootic.

"The data are gathered from publications by Statistics Norway and are based on answers from more than 5,000 hunters yearly. On the national level, the hunting bags of capercaillie, black grouse, mountain hare and pine marten were significantly negatively correlated with that of the red fox. When the time series at the national level were detrended, there were positive correlations between the hunting bags of all species without time lag, except that of pine marten, which lagged one year behind the other species.

"At the local level there were negative correlations between the hunting bag of red fox and those of the small game species except for willow grouse. The study confirms that the red fox is a keystone predator in Scandinavia."

Declining survival rates of red foxes Vulpes vulpes during the first outbreak of sarcoptic mange in Sweden, Tomas Willebrand, Gustaf Samelius, Zea Walton, Morten Odden and Jan Englund (2021)

Nature Travels only reference to the Red fox is https://naturetravels.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/the-arctic-fox-in-sweden-and-norway/:

"In the past the main threat to Arctic foxes was hunting for their fur. Whilst the demand for fox fur has decreased and with it to the amount of foxes being hunted Arctic foxes are still hunted today by indigenous people as a game species.

"The encroachment of the red fox on the territories of the Arctic fox is another factor affecting the numbers of Arctic fox as the red fox is larger and more aggressive.

There are several projects operating in Sweden and Norway which are working to help increase the numbers of Arctic foxes through the supplementation of food and control of red fox populations."

Unless you stop the hunting how can you preserve arctic foxes? Killing red foxes is pointless but Sweden and Norway has a tendency to kill canids such as wolves pointlessly. There is very little online about the red fox in Norway so knowledge of past fox types is very likely poor.

What we need is a look at old (pre 19th century but up to, say, 1840s) illustrations and drawings of foxes from Norway and Sweden, however, that really is for researchers in those countries to look into just as it is important for researchers in Western Europe to do so. 

We have the news items and book references to foxes imported from Sweden and Norway we just need to find illustrations or even taxidermy.