Gentry Hale

Year of Award

2023

Document Type

Professional Paper

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Name

Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism

Department or School/College

Journalism

Committee Chair

Nadia White

Committee Co-chair

Ray Fanning

Commitee Members

Chad Bishop

Keywords

Musk oxen, Alaska, Conservation, Nome, musk ox, sled dogs

Subject Categories

Journalism Studies

Abstract

You’d be hard-pressed to find a town with more sled dogs and mushers per capita than Nome, the finish line of the 938-mile Iditarod sled dog race.

It is also home to a growing herd of musk oxen, massive ungulates that Congress reintroduced to the Seward Peninsula in 1970. These icons of the far north have changed little over their 1.8 million years of existence and more closely related to sheep and goats than actual oxen.

While musk oxen pose a risk to dogs and people, they are also a major tourist attraction that helps inject much needed outside cash into the local economy. But that tolerance quickly frayed after a large bull gored and killed an Alaska State Trooper in December 2022—the first recorded instance of a musk ox killing a person in North America.

With a subsistence hunting season already in place for these animals, the Alaska Board of Game responded by more than tripling musk oxen harvest numbers to 30 for the upcoming season in Nome in an attempt to instill a fear of humans back into the animals. However, some residents worry that it is not enough to turn the tide or that killing so many more animals may cause a cascade of other issues.

More than 50 years after Congress restored musk oxen to Alaska’s Seward Peninsula, residents of Nome are struggling to agree on how best to manage what have become one of the largest nuisance animals in the global north.

Download

Share

COinS
 

© Copyright 2023 Gentry Hale