But prey for Arctic foxes—llemmings and small rodents—are crashing in population numbers as climate change delivers more rain and less snow across their natural northern range in Scandinavia.

Frozen rain on top of snow makes it hard for lemmings to dig burrows; they need to stay warm, which means the foxes are struggling to find enough to eat.

That’s why the scientists breeding them in captivity are also maintaining more than 30 feeding stations across the alpine wilderness stocked with dog food kibble.

As part of the state-sponsored program to restore Arctic foxes, Norway has been feeding the population for nearly 20 years, at an annual cost of around NOK 3.1 million (EUR 275,000). It has no plans to stop anytime soon.

Since 2006, the program has helped to boost the fox population from as few as 40 in Norway, Finland and Sweden, to around 550 across Scandinavia today.

Fox pups are bred and raised in an outdoor fenced enclosure near Oppdal, a remote site some 400 kilometers north of Oslo, where scientists monitor their health and development and try to prevent them from being attacked by eagles before being released into the wild the following winter.

The foxes had been driven to near extinction across Scandinavia by hunters seeking their winter-white fur before they gained some reprieve with the introduction of hunting bans and protections in the 1920s and 1930s.

Arctic foxes have since emerged as a symbol of the Far North. The Arctic fox is featured in the logos for both the Arctic Council and the Swedish outdoor brand Fjallraven.

At the current population, scientists said it could take another 25 years to reach the program’s goal of 2,000 Arctic foxes running free through Scandinavia, provided the foxes’ bellies are kept full.