Six musk ox are roaming along the shores of the Chukchi and northern Bering Seas wearing their new GPS collars.

The Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups outfitted the animals to study how climate change may affect them. Next year in the four-year project, the research team will collar an additional 30-40 more animals.

“Musk ox are a throwback to our Pleistocene heritage and once shared the landscape with mammoths, wild horses, and sabered cats,” said the study’s leader Joel Berger, a Wildlife Conservation Society scientist and professor at the University of Montana. “They may also help scientists understand how arctic species can or cannot adapt to climate change.”

Once found in Europe and Northern Asia, today musk ox are restricted to Arctic regions in North America and Greenland although they have been introduced into Russia and northern Europe. They were reintroduced in Alaska after being wiped out in the late 19th century when they were hunted for hides and meat. Currently, musk ox are found in two national parks: Alaska’s Bering Land Bridge National Park and Cape Krusenstem National Monument.