As muskox migrate into Nome city limits, the community finds itself increasingly concerned about safety implications arising from their presence.
Muskox have been spotted in various areas around the community, including the elementary school, between houses during early hours and in Icy View neighborhoods. Muskox have been reported to kill or antagonize animals and continue to prevent visitors at the cemetery due to absence of fencing.
Muskox disappeared in Alaska by the beginning of the 1900s but were bred in the Bering Strait Region in the 1970s. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the population has grown from 750 muskox in the 1970s to more than 4,000 today.
This year, the bag limit in the 22C game management unit is offering 30 permits for the inner and outer Nome areas. The classified Tier II hunt increased from nine permits to 30 permits in 2023. Sarah Germain, a wildlife biologist with Fish and Game, said this should help control the muskox population in town.
“Hopefully, now that there’s a cow season, folks may be encouraged to harvest a muskox in the fall time in the month of August, September and October when there is still muskox in and around town,” Germain said. “And we’ll have to assess and see if that does help the nuisance muskox situation.”
Germain said muskox have been coming into town since 2007 and said that the change in distribution is unclear.
“Since that time, we’ve periodically gotten calls about dog and human conflicts with muskox,” she said. “I don’t really know that I’d say that it’s increased over time.”
She said residents have used tactics to help deter the animals off personal property, and some are more effective than others.
“Fish and Game staff have learned a lot about getting muskox out of an area through time, but it seems like you could yell, you could try to use sirens, there’s water guns,” she said. “Folks have tried various things, but all those things are temporary compared to a fence.”
In December, state Court Services Officer Curtis Worland was killed by a muskox he was trying to haze off his property’s dog lot near Nome.
Sarah Swartz, a Nome resident since 2006, remembers when she first moved to Nome and recalls driving down Beam Road to view muskox, but a personal encounter six years later has changed her perspective forever.
“Back in 2012, my dog, in that short time of folding my laundry, he did get gored,” Swartz said. “And that was very, very traumatizing because this big animal who had just attacked my dog was angry and he wouldn’t move. And I couldn’t find my dogs.”
The increasing presence of muskox in town prompted Swartz to adapt her daily routines around muskox, specifically around her home. She said she goes outside every morning to make sure there are no muskox hiding, so she can safely leave her house.
Fish and Game advises residents living in muskox country to clear brush around their homes to improve visibility and reduce potential encounters with muskox. But Swartz said not all Nome residents have the financial means or tools to clear brush or build a fence.
“That takes a tremendous amount of time and money because of resources and stuff that I have to use,” she said. “I really don’t feel like we should be paying for it.”
Swartz said she can’t find a management plan for muskox in the Seward Peninsula, but has found plans for other Arctic regions, including Greenland. She said there’s enough land in the region for the muskox to be moved and recommends a muskox farm.
“It’d be great for tourism, and it would be safer for the community and everybody else,” Swartz said. “We could actually get to a point where we could have a higher population and end up having some of those animals harvested for food and it can go to communities in need.”
Nome police didn’t immediately answer a request for comment Friday.
Germain said that Fish and Game will be performing a muskox survey around the Seward Peninsula next spring that will assess the results of the new bag and cow limits. Limits will be reevaluated for the next hunting season based on those results.
