MINOR FUR-BEARING ANIMALS. 113 
foxes must of necessity be kept in captivity; but if an island is chosen, one can either 
keep the animals in corrals or permit them to run at large, or both methods could be 
resorted to at the same time. An island ranch also has the advantage of furnishing 
more complete isolation against outside interference with the foxes, and there is better 
assurance against total loss if an animal escapes from the inclosure. 
Long Island, situated about 7 miles from Kodiak, was selected as the location of 
the Kodiak Fox Farm. This island is an ideal one for the purposes intended, and is 
near enough to Kodiak—the home of the four members of the firm—so that the manage- 
ment of the ranch can be given the personal supervision of those interested. Long 
Island contains about three square miles of low rolling hills, is partially timbered 
with spruce, affording some most excellent locations for corrals, and is bountifully 
supplied with water from numerous small lakes and streams. The waters surrounding 
the island abound with fish, such as cod, halibut, flounders, salmon, etc. There 
are several beaches where clams and mussels may be secured at every low tide, 
and in the spring of the year large quantities of eggs can be gathered from the adjacent 
rocks where sea birds nest in numbers. With all these at hand a cheap supply of 
excellent food for the foxes is assured. Wild berries also grow on this island in great 
quantities, and our experience has taught us that these can be fed to advantage. 
METHOD OF FOX RANCHING.—Fox ranching in Alaska is not a new industry by any 
means, but the methods under which it has been conducted were such that most of 
those who attempted it have met with but indifferent success. In fact, but very few 
have made better than mere wages for the time and effort devoted to it, and still fewer 
have succeeded in reaping a profit in keeping with the capital invested and energy 
expended in the care of their ranches. 
In selecting a method of fox farming the choice must be between two systems— that 
of breeding the animals in captivity, which has been proved so successful by the 
Canadian farmers with black foxes, and that of allowing them to run at large on islands, 
the practice most in vogue among Alaskans with blue foxes. While we are in favor of 
the former method as offering far more possibilities, still there are certain advantages 
to the latter, and where a ranch is situated on an island both systems might be resorted 
to simultaneously. 
The chief advantage in permitting the foxes to run at large is that the initial cost of 
establishing a ranch is materially less than the investment necessary for the construc- 
tion of corrals and inclosures; and for this reason it is possible for some who can not 
afford to undertake the business of raising foxes in captivity, to liberate a few animals 
on a suitable island. By giving such a ranch careful attention, the profits accruing— 
especially with blue foxes at present prices—should be in keeping with the capital 
invested and cost of operation; still, the mere fact that the percentage of loss of young 
foxes on the islands in Alaska has been so great, is a strong argument against this 
method. Mr. Samuel Applegate, who has had a great deal of experience propagating 
blue foxes liberated on islands in the Aleutian group, and who has given the subject 
very careful study, has clearly demonstrated that the blue fox can be successfully 
raised under the system that has been generally adopted, provided proper intelligence 
and care are exercised in handling the business. Even with the remarkable results 
he has been able to accomplish, however, he states that under this system only a 
small percentage of the pups born are raised to maturity, and places the average 
mortality among the young animals at 75 per cent. (Alaska fisheries and fur indus- 
tries in 1913, Bureau of Fisheries document 797.) If this statement is correct—and we 
have every reason to believe the estimate is a conservative one—it means that only 
two pups of every eight born reach maturity, or an age where they are of any value. 
Such an enormous loss may eventually mean failure, and the only way we see that it 
can be avoided, or reduced to a minimum, is by breeding and caring for the animals 
in captivity. On Prince Edward Island, for instance, where all fox ranchers rear their 
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