depend on hearing to detect danger. 



Calves are born in April or May, 

 and are cared for by both parents. 

 Twins and albinos are rare, though 

 three albinos were born on the Big 

 Delta Range. None of these white 

 buffaloes is alive today. 



Musk ox — Whalers and traders 

 exterminated the musk ox in Alaska 

 nearly a century ago. But today a 

 small herd maintains itself on 

 Nunivak Island, a national wild- 

 life refuge in Bering Sea. This 

 herd, numbering 76 in 1951, was es- 

 tablished with a nucleus of 34 

 brought in from Greenland in 1930. 



One-time associate of the woolly 

 mammoth, the musk ox is built and 

 upholstered for a glacial climate: 

 a deep, dense, wool undercoat is 

 overlaid by very long, coarse, flow- 

 ing hairs that almost touch the 

 ground. This brownish-black coat 

 protects against snow, rain, and 

 cold. 



The sexes look alike, with broad 

 flat hollow horns that are perma- 

 nent. The musk ox uses horns, 

 hooves, and nose to get at its food 

 beneath the crusted snow. It 

 browses on dwarf willows, mosses, 

 lichens, and other Alpine plants. 

 When fighting, the animal gives off 

 a very noticeable odor from a small, 

 musk-filled gland below each eye, 

 hence its name. 



To defend themselves, musk oxen 

 form a circle, with the calves inside. 

 Effective against wild predators, 

 this ancient battle formation made 

 the animals easy targets for rifle 

 hunters, who could pick them off 



with ease from a safe distance. 

 Still adhering to this form of de- 

 fense, musk oxen need complete 

 protection in the land where their 

 ancestors roamed. 



R e i n d e e r — Although tremen- 

 dously important as a food source 

 for the Eskimos, reindeer are not 

 classed as wildlife because they are 

 semidomesticated. These relatives 

 of the caribou are not native to 

 Alaska, but were brought in from 

 Siberia: 1,280 were imported be- 

 tween 1891 and 1902. For some 

 years food and other conditions 

 were favorable, and by 1936 the 

 reindeer increased to 600,000, but 

 there are only about 20,000 now. 

 This drastic decline is attributed 

 to depletion of winter ranges, in- 

 crease of depredation by wolves, 

 poor herding and management 

 practices, excessive butchering, and 

 loss from mixing with migratory 

 caribou herds. 



Reindeer in Alaska are under the 

 jurisdiction of the Alaska Native 

 Service, and purchase of live rein- 

 deer for export must be approved in 

 writing by that agency. By law, 

 only natives may own them. This 

 animal might again become im- 

 portant in the economy of north- 

 western Alaska if its numbers could 

 be increased. 



Herds are distributed over the 

 tundra from St. Michael on the 

 south shore of Norton Sound to 

 Barrow on the Arctic Ocean. There 

 are herds on the Pribilofs, and on 

 Nunivak, St. Lawrence, Kodiak, 

 Atka, and Umnak. 



27 



