The conservation status of the species is in general good and several hundred thousand individuals are estimated to remain in total. The IUCN has assessed it as being of "least concern". However, the Scandinavian mainland population is acutely endangered, despite being legally protected from hunting and persecution for several decades. The estimate of the adult population in all of Norway, Sweden, and Finland is fewer than 200 individuals. As a result, the populations of arctic fox have been carefully studied and inventoried in places such as the Vindelfjällens Nature Reserve (Sweden), which has the arctic fox as its symbol.