State opens four-permit muskox hunt in Unit 26B as herd falls to 220

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will issue four bull muskox permits on Oct. 1 for the RX110 registration hunt in the portion of Unit 26B east of the Dalton Highway Corridor Management Area, open only to Alaska residents. Two permits will be available in Nuiqsut at 9 a.m. and two in Kaktovik at 4 p.m. the same day, issued first-come, first-served. The season runs Dec. 15 through March 31, 2027, with a bag limit of one bull muskox and one permit per household. Unit 26B has three muskox hunting opportunities, TX108, DX112 and RX110, but this order concerns only RX110.

This is not a new hunt. RX110 ran in the same registration format in 2025-26, when ADF&G shifted the bag limit from any muskox to one bull muskox because of population declines. The department says the bull-only, four-permit structure reflects a harvestable surplus of bulls even as the overall herd shrinks.

ADF&G's current estimate for Unit 26B is 220 muskoxen, below the management objective of at least 300 across the contiguous eastern Unit 26A, 26B and 26C population. The department's management plan caps harvest at 2% of the spring precalving population only when the herd is at least 300 and stable or growing; Unit 26B no longer meets that threshold. Federal Subsistence Board analysts wrote in April that the herd had stayed above 300 since 2018 and numbered about 380 as of 2023 data, meaning the population has fallen by roughly 40% in two years. Muskoxen were reintroduced to the North Slope in 1969 and 1970, and the contiguous herd was closed to hunting from 2007 until the population recovered enough to reopen it.

RX110 is a subsistence-only hunt with transportation and trophy-destruction requirements. Hunters may not use aircraft to move hunters, gear or meat. Trophy destruction is mandatory if horns leave Unit 26: hunters must cut through both horns within two inches of the eye and submit the end portion to the department's Fairbanks office within three days of leaving the unit.

Kaktovik households have long-standing customary and traditional use of muskox. In Nuiqsut, some subsistence advocates argue the species should remain protected because it has not historically been part of the community's subsistence portfolio and because conservation concerns persist.