Ice Age relic at risk from warmer temps

WASHINGTON, April 25 (UPI) -- U.S. conservationists said they're studying musk ox to determine how the relics of the Ice Age may be affected by climate change.

The Wildlife Conservation Society -- working with the National Park Service, U. S. Geological Survey and Alaska Fish and Game -- has equipped six musk ox with GPS collars as part of a four-year study to determine the extent to which weather, disease and predation may be driving populations, the WCS said Friday in a release.

"Musk ox are a throwback to our Pleistocene heritage and once shared the landscape with mammoths, wild horses and sabered cats," study leader Joel Berger, a professor at the University of Montana, said in a statement. "They may also help scientists understand how arctic species can or cannot adapt to climate change."