P 6 /ENG/CA1/20 - 21 [Turn Over] 6 For Teacher ’s Use Text B – To be used for Section B Text A: Scientists at Work – Tracking Muskoxen in a Warming Artic Our Earth has countless kinds of natural environments. Birds catch fish and bats catch bugs. Wood frogs in Alaska survive through ice - cold winters. But in some cold environments, the climate is fluctuating dangerously. Snow disappears too quickly or lasts longer than normal. Sometimes permafrost melts, hurting nearby animals. Permafrost is ground that is normally frozen all the time. I study how to protect animals living in cold environments. Basically, I want to understand how changing temperatures affect muskoxen, large mammals that live in the Arctic. The muskoxen species is related to woolly mammoths, which are extinct. I need to l earn if muskoxen numbers are increasing or decreasing. My work explores the size of muskoxen and their food sources. My name is Joel Berger, and I am a scientist. A Vulnerable Arctic In 2017, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a nnounced something serious. For the third year in a row, the Earth's surface was warmer than average. In the Arctic, scientists now see more winter days when temperatures never drop below freezing. Sometimes plummeting rains melts the snow, called a rain - on - snow event, which then freezes into ice. In 2002, one rain - on - snow event covered the ground in ice, and so the muskoxen could not find plants to eat, causing about 20,000 muskoxen to die. Animals living in the cold do not like the heat. Moose deal with more ticks, and reindeer get more diseases. 1 st paragraph 2 nd paragraph 3 rd paragraph 4 th paragraph P 6 /ENG/CA1/20 - 21 [Turn Over] 7 For Teacher ’s Use Scientists are studying cold environments around the world, which helps us understand the factors causing climate change, but I want to know more about how animals deal with these changes. Research On American Ice Traveling in the Arctic is complicated. In Alaska I have two helpers. One is named Fred Goodhope Jr. He is a Native Alaskan whose ancestors survived there for 12,000 years, and he knows these lands very well. He can fix a snow machine and navigate bliz zards without GPS. Muskoxen live in close herds, miles from one another. For years, I used helicopters to put tracking devices on muskoxen. I stopped using tracking devices because some animals didn't rejoin their herds. Instead, they sheltered alone in t he snow. I wanted nicer ways to collect data, so now I look at frozen poop. We look at the poop to know if the muskoxen are stressed or if they are pregnant with babies. We can tell this by the chemical makeup of the poop. We also make measurements from p hotographs. When muskoxen see danger, they stand close together to defend themselves. We approach the group to take photos, and these pictures help us to know how big the muskoxen are and how their behavior is. Although both types of data help us know if t he muskoxen are healthy, using both types of data gives us more details than only one set of data would. Then we compare the size of wild muskoxen to the size of captive animals. Comparison helps us understand how and why wild muskoxen get so big. The siz e of wild muskoxen is affected by temperature, plant growth and rain - on - snow events. Young animals without enough to eat are less likely to survive. During rain - on - snow events, muskoxen carrying babies cannot eat plants trapped under ice. They may not fin d enough food for themselves and their babies. Research On Asian Ice There are reports of polar bears eating muskoxen. However, we do not know if polar bears are a danger to muskoxen. Polar bears could be feeding on muskoxen that already died, or attacking live 5 th paragraph 6 th paragraph 7 th paragraph 8 th paragraph 9 th paragraph 10 th paragraph 11 th paragraph P 6 /ENG/CA1/20 - 21 [Turn Over] 8 For Teacher ’s Use animals. To study muskoxen, I sometimes wear a polar bear costu me. Then I approach muskoxen to see how they will be phobic : or unafraid. I also study how prey respond to predators they have not seen before. Feeling nervous, I crawl towards a muskoxen herd on all fours. I could be attacked, yet I can’t carry a gun. Instead, I can leap from the ground onto my feet, which confuses the muskoxen and makes them run. At The Edge Humans sometimes harm natural environments that have ex isted for thousands of years. Being in nature helps me see the world through animal eyes. I work with scientists to protect all creatures who live on the planet with us. Animals have learned to survive the cold over many generations, and so I hope with my findings I can help these majestic creatures continue to survive. 12 th paragraph 13 th paragraph A Muskox social group watches Berger dressed as a polar bear before fleeing.