The Arctic is becoming smaller

Relic of the ice age faces a bleak future in rapidly heating world

- Patrick Greenfield

Built like a small bison, weighing as much as a grand piano and covered in thick, shaggy coat, the musk ox is one of the most distinctive species in the high Arctic. But from a hill on Greenland's tundra, they seem impossible to find.

Each bush, rock and clump of grass resembles a mass of wool and horns in the blustery chill on the edge of the island's polar ice cap. Scanning the landscape with binoculars, Chris Sørensen looks for signs of movement.

"See that black dot over there in the orange grass? That could be one," says the station manager at Kangerlussuaq International Science Support (Kiss), shuffling back towards his car.

"But," he adds, "it could also be a rock." As we approach the dot, it quickly becomes clear that it is, indeed, a rock.

Musk oxen are relics of the ice age, adapted to thrive in pitch-black polar winters where temperatures can stay below -20C (-4F) for months. They give birth as the light returns for the brief Arctic summer, ready to take advantage of the 24-hour grazing days before the light disappears once again. Often boxed in by ice and geography in isolated populations, they are among the world's most inbred mammals.

More than 20,000 musk oxen live around Kangerlussuaq at the end of a 120-mile fjord. This was home to Greenland's main airport until last month, when flights transferred to the capital, Nuuk.