(Pic: Vartland) While many people would love to have reindeer gambolling through their village, it has long been a bone of contention in Hammerfest. Each summer, the reindeer migrate from Kautokeino /Guovdageaidnu in inner Finnmark to the island of Kvaloya, where Hammerfest is. Residents are tired of their flower beds being munched by reindeer and their defecatory practices. The local priest, according to an article in the Vartland newspaper has taken to erecting signs near damaged flowerbeds which read ‘A result of years of Hammerfest council saying We are Working On It’.

(Pic: Vartland) The Mayor of the town sympathises with the priest, and said that the whole of community is working towards a reindeer free town. The expansion of Hammerfest has meant a loss of summer pastures for reindeer herders, who already feel squeezed by the Statoil facility, the rapid growth in development in the region and the proposed windpark for Kvaloya that will further eat into scarce pastures.

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