The studies aimed to evaluate the pathomorphological changes induced by various management conditions in arctic foxes. Healthy pups aged about eight weeks were randomly assigned to two groups, 20 animals each. The foxes of the control group were housed on a farm, while the experimental group comprised of foxes raised in a confined space. Throughout the rearing period, air quality monitoring of the environment of both groups was performed. During the autumn slaughter (the experiment lasted for 7 months), sections of the liver, kidneys, lungs, ovaries, and uterus obtained from all the foxes were evaluated pathomorphologically. Pathological changes were observed in lung sections collected from the animals of the experimental group. During the air monitoring, higher concentrations of pollutants were identified in the experimental group environment.
Main genes determining white coat colour in Arctic foxes are: recessive gene d and incompletely dominant, autosomal gene S with lethal effect in homozygous condition. The white coat colour of Arctic foxes bred on Polish farms had been determined solely by the recessive gene until the 1970s, when the Shadow variety was imported from Norway. The genetic code of the two varieties was different, but this fact was not taken into account. The results obtained in the present study do not confirm the theories on the heredity of white coat colour of Arctic foxes. The authors of these theories assumed that the coat colour depends on the presence of a recessive gene, the only factor responsible for the white furcoat. Apart from Polar and Shadow white foxes, there is a wide variety of darker white animals, and this fact suggests that there is a number of cumulative genes responsible for the intensity of coat pigmentation.