The shaggy musk ox recently came close to sharing the fate of its prehistoric contemporaries the sabre-toothed tiger and the mammoth. It had been hunted ruthlessly and with no thought for tomorrow by the Eskimo and others struggling to survive on the bleak and barren Arctic tundra. Just in time, a spectacular operation using icebreakers and helicopters was mounted to catch some of the musk oxen and take them to a place of safety.