Space beavers. Cod grunts. Northern skunks.
Cabin Radio just got home from ArcticNet, the December conference in Calgary that brings together researchers from all branches of Arctic science.
Much more reporting from that conference is still to come – watch out for it in the weeks ahead.
In the meantime, enjoy this selection of seven science and wildlife stories that caught our eye in 2025.
Arctic cod are a key food source for most polar predators. Researchers are becoming fluent in cod grunts so they can use sound to help keep the species going.
A new podcast – sorry, Codcast – from the University of Victoria takes people through the science behind the noises Arctic cod make.
Underwater, sight and smell are much harder for many species to meaningfully use. That makes sound vitally important.
We spoke with one of the researchers about the project.
Many months after they were first noticed around Yellowknife, there’s still no firm explanation for why some of the city’s foxes have such a peculiar appearance.
We do, however, have some new opinions from scientists who study this kind of thing closely.
In September 2024, wildlife watchers shared photos of a strange-looking fox with a shorter coat and bigger ears than normal.
Residents offered explanations ranging from a fox-coyote hybrid to a jackal or even Anubis, the Egyptian god said to have acted as a guide to the underworld. Here’s the latest.
As Northwest Territories skunks go, this one looked pretty happy.
Brent Kotchea, passing by on Highway 5 east of Hay River, filmed the skunk noodling around in the foliage near the road this month, looking perfectly at home.
He shared the video to Facebook with one simple question: “What on earth?”
“A lot of people don’t know about the skunks,” said Pete Cott, a manager in the NWT government’s wildlife management division, after Cabin Radio sent him the footage.
Nestled into a verdant landscape in Gatineau, Québec sits the Canadian Museum of Nature’s research and collections facility, which houses millions of animal and plant specimens.
There, researchers study and catalogue skins, bones, plant matter, fossils and rocks that make up the flora, fauna and geology of the country – and the NWT – collected over the past 250 years or more. Some specimens in the collection go back as far back as the Franklin expedition.
“Our natural history is housed here,” said biologist Troy McMullin. “This is our evidence locker.”
The facility has dozens of secure climate-controlled rooms, normally off limits to the public except during special tours and open houses. Each room is filled with cabinets and shelves where specimens are meticulously catalogued and maintained to ensure their longevity in the collection. We went for a tour.
Back in 2022, when the world was a simpler place, one of Cabin Radio’s most-read articles all year was titled: “Experts sound alarm as thousands of beavers migrate north.”
You can read it here. Caitrin Pilkington documented how experts were gathering to discuss “the proliferation of big and small beaver dams from Nunavik to Inuvik” – and the significant implications for Arctic ecosystems as beavers moved in.
Now, CBC documentary series The Nature of Things is examining the phenomenon, which has not gone away. If anything, it’s having more of an impact than ever.
A 60-minute episode that aired in 2025, titled Beavers From Above, went to the Inuvialuit Settlement Region to explore how beavers are moving northward and the changes they’re making.
Délı̨nę has a new mobile research lab that was built in the community. Team members behind it say this kind of project is rare in northern Canada.
Homa Kheyrollah Pour is the Canada Research Chair in remote sensing of environmental change and executive director of the Cold Regions Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Pour’s work focuses on changes in ice thickness, snow depth, water quality and land cover in a warming climate. She says the mobile lab will help that work.
Aastha Sethi learned more about how the lab came to be.
“I have lots of colleagues who think this is a bad idea. Even doing the research.”
Would you use technology to try to repair disappearing Arctic sea ice? Some scientists at one of North America’s biggest climate conferences increasingly think this may be the only way forward – or at least, it deserves much more examination.
“I get their point,” Brendan Kelly said of his colleagues who don’t like that idea. “Most of the things that give them anxiety give me anxiety. My sense is therefore we should do the research. What we don’t know is what can hurt us.”
Here’s why some scientists think the concept at least deserves careful study.
