Arctic foxes hunt the chicks and eggs of nesting birds . But in their defense , whatever they catch now will be buried in the tundra to be dug up during the long , dark winter , as they cannot fly away as birds do . Life is hard here and all must do whatever is necessary to survive . Our expedition leader led us straight to the fox ’ s den ( so to speak ), where we found a fox family of three . One fox , probably a pup , crept up on another fox ( probably another pup ), just as two dog pups would . They snarled and played , arguing over possession of a white feather . At one point , one curious pup crept to within about 15 feet to peeked at us from behind a rock .
A common sight in the arctic are reindeer . The Svalbard reindeer appear to have evolved from larger European reindeer , have short legs and are quite tame . At the shoulder , the largest buck is only 36 inches making them quite approachable , allowing me to inch forward to within about 15 feet for photographs . They literally scrape out a living in this desolate land by walking over fast ice from island to island during the polar night in order to find more microscopically short grasses and lichens , which they scrape from the ground after pawing away the snow . This is also the only species of deer in which both sexes wear antlers , those of the male being more impressive , and indeed , often making them look as though they will tilt over , they are so large . Their wide-set eyes have them resembling Sid , the clumsy sloth of Ice Age fame , making one feel at once a certain kinship with these gentle creatures . The only two predators of this isolated island subspecies are polar bears , who only hunt the old , weak and young ; and people , who harvest their fur and meat . A pair that we found in one isolated valley were very playful , first approaching , then bucking and romping as they ran away , only to approach again . It made me wonder whether or not these two had ever seen human beings before .
The Atlantic walrus is a highlight for any arctic tour . The males of this highly social species reach weights of 3,000 pounds and nearly 12
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