Latest news with #muskox
CBC
28-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Yukon Wildlife Preserve 'hand-raising' baby muskox after complicated birth
Social Sharing It's baby season at the wildlife preserve near Whitehorse, but one little creature has required a little more help than the rest — a muskox calf, who's being bottle-fed by the animal care team after his mother had health complications after birth. While the calf himself was healthy after being born at the end of April, Yukon Wildlife Preserve executive director Jake Paleczny said the calf's mother had a retained placenta, where the organ doesn't fully and properly expel itself. That meant the mother continued to have contractions after giving birth, which made her uncomfortable, and she didn't allow the calf to feed after he was born. "That first feeding in the early hours is really important and at a certain point, you know, it was becoming clear that this wasn't going to happen," Paleczny said, adding that other muskox were starting to "investigate" the calf and knock him over with their horns. "We ended up having to intervene and so we're now bottle-raising, hand-raising this little baby muskox." Both the calf and the mother, neither of which have names, are doing well now, Paleczny said, but the initial separation meant the pair never got to have a "critical early bonding period." Instead, the preserve's animal care team has had to step into the parenting role, sustaining the now almost four-week-old-calf on a special formula — he gets his first bottle of the day at 6 a.m., and the last one at 7 p.m. — while introducing solid food in the form of pellets. The calf is also being kept in a pen separate from, but adjacent to, the rest of the herd's muskox herd, with the care team planning to allow him to gradually mingle with and eventually fully rejoin his peers — something both sides seem to be interested in. "We've been seeing them coming up to the fence and checking each other out," Paleczny said. "There was some nervousness at first, even some of the adults running away as the baby came up — it's this unusual situation." The calf, Paleczny said, will have "a little door that he can come and go" from the herd's pen because "there are a lot of big animals in there," and is still getting food that the rest of the herd doesn't have access to. The care team, meanwhile, is trying to limit interactions with the calf to prevent him getting too accustomed to humans. "We want him to be a fully-fledged, functioning member of this muskox herd, not, you know, a person, a human in muskox form," Paleczny said. Besides the muskox, the preserve has also seen the birth of bison and elk calves this spring, with mule deer and thin-horn sheep expected to be born in the coming weeks. Some caribou calves and mountain goat kids could be on their way too. Paleczny said the preserve's animals are largely able to have successful births and raise their young without intervention, with the muskox being the only baby the care team has had to help this year. The calf, on Tuesday morning, was alert and curious, running around his pen and following a caregiver as he topped up the pen's water and pellets. He weighed 12 kg, double his birth weight but still a far cry from his final size — male muskox can reach more than 350 kg when fully grown and stand five metres tall at the shoulder. For now, though, the calf is closer to the size of a small dog, little more than a ball of black-and-brown fluff zooming around his enclosure or napping in a pile of hay. "On a scale of one to 10," Paleczny acknowledged, "this guy is 11 on cuteness."
CBC
28-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Why you can't cuddle with this adorable muskox (even if you wanted to)
It's baby season at the wildlife preserve near Whitehorse. But one calf has needed a little more help than the rest. Staff are currently bottle-raising and hand-raising this little baby muskox.
The Independent
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
An Alaska Mother's Day tradition: Mingling with ice age survivors on a farm
It is one of Alaska's favorite Mother's Day traditions, getting up close and personal with animals that have survived the ice age. All moms get a daisy and free admission Sunday at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, about an hour's drive north of Anchorage. Once inside they will have the chance to view 75 members of the musk ox herd, including three young calves just getting their feet under them. Also a draw is an old bull named Trebek, named after the late 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek, a benefactor of the facility. 'Who doesn't want to celebrate Mother's Day with a musk ox mom and the most adorable calf you're ever going to find in your life?' said Mark Austin, the farm's executive director. Mother's Day is the traditional start of the summer season for the farm, which traces its roots back to 1964 and at several locations before moving in 1986 to Palmer. That move put it on Alaska's limited road system, provided easier access to grazing land than in tundra communities and it to incorporate educational opportunities at the farm facility, which is dwarfed by the the Talkeetna and Chugach mountain ranges. 'When we opened the doors here, we started doing Mother's Day as a grand opening every year,' Austin said. He called it a natural decision, celebrating mothers with cute, newborn baby musk oxen on the grounds. So far this year, three baby musk oxen have been born and are on display, and more could be on the way. Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year, attracting more than 1,500 visitors. It is a tradition that now stretches over three generations. 'It's a huge, just kind of rite of passage for a lot of people,' Austin said. 'If we ever talked about not doing it, there'd be a riot.' Musk oxen are ice age survivors. 'They were running around with saber-toothed tigers and mastodons, and they're the ones that lived,' Austin said. The herd members all have diverse personalities, he added, and they are crafty, smart and inquisitive. Their closest relatives to animals of today would be Arctic goats. Mature musk ox bulls can stand 5 feet (about 1.5 meters) tall and weigh as much as 800 pounds (about 360 kilograms), while female cows are smaller at about 4 feet (about 1.2 meters) and up to 500 pounds (about 230 kilograms), according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's website. They are stocky, long-haired animals with a slight hump in their shoulder, a short tail and horns, the website says. The Inupiat call musk ox 'itomingmak,' which means 'the animal with skin like a beard,' for its long hair hanging nearly to the ground. The mammals once roamed across northern Europe, Asia, Greenland and North America before they began to die off. By the 1920s the last remaining ones were in Greenland and Canada. Efforts to reintroduce the musk ox to Alaska started in 1934, when 34 were delivered to Fairbanks from Greenland. Since then, the wild population has grown to about 5,000, located throughout the nation's largest state, Austin said. The nonprofit farm welcomes donations from visitors on Sunday. Some people will make a beeline for the baby musk oxen, while others will throw a $100 bill on the counter first. 'We do like to see the donation, but we truly offer this as an event to the community, as a thank you,' Austin said. 'It really gives us a chance to give something back.'
Associated Press
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
An Alaska Mother's Day tradition: Mingling with ice age survivors on a farm
PALMER, Alaska (AP) — It is one of Alaska's favorite Mother's Day traditions, getting up close and personal with animals that have survived the ice age. All moms get a daisy and free admission Sunday at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, about an hour's drive north of Anchorage. Once inside they will have the chance to view 75 members of the musk ox herd, including three young calves just getting their feet under them. Also a draw is an old bull named Trebek, named after the late 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek, a benefactor of the facility. 'Who doesn't want to celebrate Mother's Day with a musk ox mom and the most adorable calf you're ever going to find in your life?' said Mark Austin, the farm's executive director. Mother's Day is the traditional start of the summer season for the farm, which traces its roots back to 1964 and at several locations before moving in 1986 to Palmer. That move put it on Alaska's limited road system, provided easier access to grazing land than in tundra communities and it to incorporate educational opportunities at the farm facility, which is dwarfed by the the Talkeetna and Chugach mountain ranges. 'When we opened the doors here, we started doing Mother's Day as a grand opening every year,' Austin said. He called it a natural decision, celebrating mothers with cute, newborn baby musk oxen on the grounds. So far this year, three baby musk oxen have been born and are on display, and more could be on the way. Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year, attracting more than 1,500 visitors. It is a tradition that now stretches over three generations. 'It's a huge, just kind of rite of passage for a lot of people,' Austin said. 'If we ever talked about not doing it, there'd be a riot.' Musk oxen are ice age survivors. 'They were running around with saber-toothed tigers and mastodons, and they're the ones that lived,' Austin said. The herd members all have diverse personalities, he added, and they are crafty, smart and inquisitive. Their closest relatives to animals of today would be Arctic goats. Mature musk ox bulls can stand 5 feet (about 1.5 meters) tall and weigh as much as 800 pounds (about 360 kilograms), while female cows are smaller at about 4 feet (about 1.2 meters) and up to 500 pounds (about 230 kilograms), according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's website. They are stocky, long-haired animals with a slight hump in their shoulder, a short tail and horns, the website says. The Inupiat call musk ox 'itomingmak,' which means 'the animal with skin like a beard,' for its long hair hanging nearly to the ground. The mammals once roamed across northern Europe, Asia, Greenland and North America before they began to die off. By the 1920s the last remaining ones were in Greenland and Canada. Efforts to reintroduce the musk ox to Alaska started in 1934, when 34 were delivered to Fairbanks from Greenland. Since then, the wild population has grown to about 5,000, located throughout the nation's largest state, Austin said. The nonprofit farm welcomes donations from visitors on Sunday. Some people will make a beeline for the baby musk oxen, while others will throw a $100 bill on the counter first. 'We do like to see the donation, but we truly offer this as an event to the community, as a thank you,' Austin said. 'It really gives us a chance to give something back.'
