Patrick Jones, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game, said he has heard of dogs killing moose, caribou and a days-old musk ox calf, but nothing like this attack.

Over the last five months, multiple sled dogs in Nome were attacked by musk oxen in at least four separate incidents.

No one in Chuathbaluk has ever seen Musk-ox this far inland before.

Thirty-two musk oxen carcasses were found March 15 by scientists who had been studying them. The animals were dead and entombed in ice. The belief is that the musk oxen either drowned during a February thaw or became trapped in water and died after it froze.