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For the first time, photographic traps captured images of Little Cape Fox much further north than ever before: in Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe. Scientists say climate change is probably a key factor for foxes that are far beyond their usual limits.
As southern Africa dries up, this lovely fox, with its towering tail and distinctive silver back, has been able to extend its range north from drier areas of South Africa and Botswana. , researchers said. The nocturnal animal, the only true fox in the region, used his skills as an intelligent opportunist to survive.
Andrew Loveridge, conservation biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University, said dozens of photographic traps in Hwange National Park were supposed to investigate other larger carnivores, such as lions leopards.
For him, the discovery of Cape Fox was "exciting".
"It was completely unexpected," he told RFI. "The research team was excited to be able to document for the first time the presence of the species in Hwange and Zimbabwe."
Animals, measuring up to 60 cm and weighing barely more than a sack of sugar, are generally badociated with deserts or half-deserts, such as the Kalahari of Botswana, the Karoo of 39. South Africa and the Namib Desert in Namibia.
Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park receives more annual rainfall than these areas. Its trees are larger, unlike the open meadows and stunted thorny trees that the fox prefers.
Loveridge and his co-researchers recently wrote about their findings in the African Journal of Ecology: The fox or foxes captured by the camera traps in Hwange were either "new pioneer settlers or vagrant dispersers".
"This northward extension of Cape Fox distribution may be another example of a range expansion by an adaptable and opportunistic canid in the face of changing environmental conditions," they wrote.
"The presence of Cape foxes outside the northern margins of the range of accepted species may be indicative of a colonization of previously mesic (moderately wet) areas by a species suitable for breeding." aridity, as a result of increasing aridification in the region. "
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With more than 14,000 square kilometers, Hwange is Zimbabwe's largest national park. The fox is tiny; could he have been there all the time and simply neglected?
Loveridge does not think so. He stated that he and other researchers have been working in Hwange for more than 20 years and have conducted several thousand days of investigations with the help of photographic traps. Yet it was the first documented record of the species. Previous researchers, park staff, safari guides or tourists had not reported the fox.
"My feeling is that foxes are recent arrivals," he said.
Isla Grundy, an badociate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe, agreed that climate change might be "a possibility" behind the apparent expansion of the fox range.
"This suggests climate change, but only for now," said Grundy, who did not participate in the Hwange study.
But, she told RFI: "As long as there will be more evidence, nothing is certain".
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