Five muskoxen are stuck on a 15-acre island, so Alaska is opening a hunt

Five muskoxen have wandered onto Paamiut Island, a 15-acre rock southeast of Nunivak with no fresh water and little to eat. "Long term survival of these muskox is unlikely," area biologist Patrick Jones wrote in an emergency order Tuesday. "Non-lethal removal is impractical due to cost."

So the state is letting hunters take them instead. Registration permits open at 9 a.m. Wednesday, one animal per person, Alaska residents only, with locking-tag fees waived. The season runs through Dec. 1.

The five are descendants of a rescue of their own. Muskoxen were gone from Alaska by the late 1800s, and the herd that eventually restocked the state began with animals brought to Nunivak Island in the 1930s. That population still spills onto the smaller islands nearby, where it gets stranded.