Save some for the rest of us!

Ask anyone who’s tried to predict the vagaries of a changing climate and you’ll get the same response: climate models are tricky. From the greenhouse gas-chomping habits of the atmosphere, trees and our water to the usual problems of predicting any kind of weather pattern, the collective effect is a climate wrapped in an enigma.

And frankly, the muskoxen aren’t helping matters.

Research from Penn State suggests that one long-held assumption about climate change, namely that a warmer climate will lead to the growth of CO2-consuming shrubbery, might actually be mitigated by grazing muskoxen. Literally eating up the gains in the plants’ growth, as much as 19 per cent on average and 46 per cent in the case of the dwarf birch, these four-legged belching machines will not only be consuming the possible benefits of more plant life, but also adding to greenhouse gas emissions like their domesticated cousins.

With plant life capable of absorbing greenhouse gas being eaten by ruminants responsible for producing the same, it seems like a net loss for the planet, with hungry muskoxen sending us closer and closer to an overheated planet. Then again, if there’s anything to be taken from the complicated effects of crowing shrubs and hungry quadrupeds, it’s that with climate change you never really can be sure.