Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wildlife
Norway is home to some of Europe's most charismatic fauna and tracking
them down can be a highlight of your trip. While Norway's unique settlement
pattern spreads the human population thinly and limits wildlife habitat, Nor-
way more than compensates with its variety of iconic northern European spe-
cies - from polar bears, walrus and Arctic fox in Svalbard to musk ox,
reindeer and elk on the mainland. And offshore, whales have survived the
best efforts of hunters to drive them to extinction.
Land Mammals
Arctic Fox
Once prolific throughout Arctic regions, the Arctic fox may be Norway's most endangered
land mammal. Numbers of Arctic fox have scarcely risen in the decades since it was offi-
cially protected in 1930; the species' greatest threat now comes from the encroachment of
the much larger and more abundant red fox. Børgefjell National Park, north of Rørvik and
just south of the Arctic Circle, is home to one of mainland Norway's few viable populations,
although the species survives in more substantial numbers in Svalbard - sightings are pos-
sible even in Longyearbyen. A small population is believed to survive in the Dovrefjell-
Sunndalsfjella National Park in central Norway and a tiny number have recently been rein-
troduced onto the Hardangervidda Plateau: Europe's southernmost Arctic fox population.
The Arctic fox is superbly adapted to harsh winter climates and is believed capable of
surviving temperatures as low as minus 70°C thanks to its thick insulating layer of underfur.
Almost perfectly white in winter, the Arctic fox can have greyish-brown or smoky-grey fur
in summer. In Arctic regions it inhabits the sea ice, often cleaning up the scraps left by
polar-bear kills.
Musk Oxen & Elk
After being hunted to extinction in Norway almost two millennia ago, the downright prehis-
toric
moskus-okse
(musk oxen) were reintroduced into Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National
