The Cordova daily times., 1923-04-09

The blue fox in his natural habitat is a beach comber, from Attu Island at the western end of the Aleutian Island group to the Pribiloffs and from the mouth of the Kuskokwim north to Point Barrow and east to the Hudson Bay, the blue fox lives near or on the beach. For thousands of years his food has been sea and shore birds, ducks, sea eggs, and they are very partial to the small TOOK eel. I have watched them for hours at time rolling rocks, some of them weighing ten pounds" on the beach and catching the eels under meath. The only time I have ever seen a blue fox willingly put his feet under water is when he is cap turing these eels in hole of water several inches deep, made by the re- moval of the rock.
 In the Spring, Summer and Fall, they eat large quantities of a certain species of kelp that grows on the rocky ledges near low tide mark. They also eat large quantities Of berries, weeds and grass, and their seeds when ripe, mice, Jennings, squirrels, Arctic hares, in fact every living thing that they can find alive or dead except codfish. blue fox will starve for days at time before he will eat raw codfish, but he will eat it readily when cooked. The reason for this, I believe, is the fact that the flesh of the codfish that die in shallow water, and float in on the beaches and the codfish that are generally caught near the is- lands in the Summer months by blue fox islands farmers and offered the foxes for food are full of worms, these worms are undoubtedly in furious to the foxes and they know it. My advice is, therefore, to cook the codfish before it is fed to them.
 No two islands require exactly the same care in regard to feeding. There are islands in Alaska that require really no feeding at all, at any sea- son of the year for the first three years after being stocked with foxes, this being exceptionally true with islands where there are a great num- Der of birds, flat beaches with mus sels, clans, etc. There are other is lands that require great amount of food from the day they are stocked.
 Islands throughout Southeastern Alaska that are covered with tim her with steep beaches, with small beach area are of this class. The foxes should be fed from the start, or from the time they are placed on the island, every day, or every other day during the months of May, June, July, August, September and October. During the months of November, De- cember, January, February, March and April they eat very little in com parison with the Summer months.
 
 they hibernate and eat nothing at all. They will probably eat an aver age of one pound a day per fox. Dur ing the months of June, July and August, an old fox will eat three pounds of food day; pup will eat four pounds of food a day if well, active and vigorous during this time
 Feed your foxes all they can eat and then some. Foxes when wild on an island or in captivity will not eat late great quantity of fat, often times a layer an inch think over the entire back. This is not detrimental to the fur of the blue fox. When he is killed December 15, it is nearly all gone. January 15 his system has absorbed the balance, and by Febru- ary 1 he is as lean as a greyhound, no matter how much food is on the island. They eat very little during the rutting season, and until the pups are born in April or May, they should be fed raw eggs, (opened) clans and mussels, (crushed) barn. acles, fresh meats, birds, beef scraps, hone and blood meal Gas advertised), raw halibut, cooked codfsh, with mush made of either cornmeal, rolled oats, bran shorts, with handful of charcoal, or wood ashes, and one pound of deer hair, seal hair or skin, or bird feathers, chopped fine, and two one-pound cans of condensed milk, one pound of bone meal and one pound of blood meal to every hundred pounds of food.
 The mush should be cooked thor oughly in a large iron kettle or tub, and put it in five-gallon cans, about one to three gallons to each can,