Muskox

Muskoxen eat plants.

They eat grass, sedges and little willow bushes. In summer they eat a lot and get fat. The fat helps them through the long winter.

Muskoxen are grazers. They eat grasses, sedges, small flowering plants and woody plants such as willows. Arctic summers are short. In summer muskoxen store lots of fat, which helps them through the winter, when food is scarce.

Muskoxen are not good at digging through deep snow. In winter they stay in places where the snow is shallow or where the wind blows the ground clear, so they can reach the plants underneath.

The diet includes grasses, sedges, forbs and woody plants, especially willows. Britannica explains that muskoxen lay down large fat reserves in summer to supplement meager winter forage, and that a female's fat can support milk production for calves born before snowmelt uncovers new plants.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game notes that muskoxen are poorly adapted for digging through heavy snow, so winter habitat is generally restricted to areas of shallow snow or ground blown free by wind. Britannica describes the species as highly adapted for conserving energy in cold weather.

Muskoxen live together in herds.

If wolves come near, the grown-ups stand in a circle. The calves stay safe in the middle.

Muskoxen live in herds, often of 20 to 30 animals, and winter herds can be bigger. They are not aggressive, but if wolves come close, the adults form a tight circle or line with their horns facing out and the calves tucked behind them.

In late summer, males compete to lead a group of females. They show off by roaring, swinging their heads and standing sideways to look big, and sometimes they run at each other and bump horns. Their thick horn bases protect their heads.

Herds often number 20 to 30, and winter herds up to 75. When threatened, adults encircle the young and present a front of horns that is effective against Arctic wolves and dogs; Britannica notes that the same formation made muskoxen easy targets for human hunters.

During the rut a dominant bull keeps a harem group of about 5 to 15 females and subadults. Rivals posture, roar, swing their heads, display broadside and scent-mark, and may charge from up to 45 meters before colliding on their horn bosses. Such contests are rarely fatal, and Animal Diversity Web reports that competing bulls are usually 6 to 8 years old. Excluded bulls wander alone but generally rejoin mixed herds in winter.

Long ago, people hunted almost all the muskoxen.

Then people protected them and moved some to new homes. Now there are many muskoxen again.

By the late 1800s, hunting had left very few muskoxen. In 1927 Canada set up the Thelon Game Sanctuary, which saved the muskox on the North American mainland. Later, people moved muskoxen to Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia to start new herds.

Today the IUCN lists the muskox as Least Concern. Its 2020 assessment puts the number of adults at 127,102, though their number is going down. Scientists still keep watch, because climate change, diseases, roads, mining and oil drilling can affect where muskoxen live, and some herds in northern Alaska have become smaller.

Britannica describes severe depletion by hunting in the late 19th century; the Thelon Game Sanctuary, established in 1927 in Canada's Northwest Territories, saved the species on the North American mainland. Reintroductions and introductions then re-established muskoxen in Alaska, Russia, Norway and Sweden.

The IUCN assessed the muskox as Least Concern in 2020, counting 127,102 mature individuals and a decreasing trend. Threats it lists include oil and gas drilling, mining, roads, hunting, recreation, diseases and climate change through habitat shifts, droughts and temperature extremes. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports that herds in and near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have declined in recent years.