Reindeer Blog

FAIRBANKS (AP) — For most hungry Alaskans, reindeer meat doesn’t represent much more than a spicy sausage link. University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers want to know if there’s more potential for the state’s roughly 18,000 reindeer. A new market study is under way to see whether local consumers are interested in high-end cuts of reindeer, [...]

(Source: SitNews) – Thursday’s birth of a 10-pound male reindeer calf at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm made worldwide agricultural history: It marks the culmination of the first documented successful pregnancy of a reindeer by artificial insemination using frozen-and-thawed semen. The calf appeared at 3 p.m. on April 22, as University of Alaska Fairbanks Reindeer Research [...]

On a remote island in the Bering Strait during World War II, a tiny band of Americans ran a radar station. Twenty-nine reindeer were placed on St. Matthew Island with them, to be eaten in case of emergency. The emergency never came, and population biologist Dave Klein counted 6,000 reindeer on the island by 1963, [...]

While much has been made of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s lack of international experience (especially after a poor performance in an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric), it should be noted that what experience she does have, has a reindeer herding connection… One of the few politicians she actually has met from Russia (Putin’s [...]

(From Arctic Sounder, by TAMAR BEN-YOSEF, April 11, 2008 at 11:19AM AKST The struggle by Alaska’s Inupiat to protect their culture in face of resource development has drawn the attention of indigenous leaders in Russia facing near-identical challenges. A delegation of four Russian indigenous leaders from the Sakha Republic showed up in Barrow and Nuiqsut [...]

In Anchorage, Alaska, an unusual event, styled on Pamplona’s running of the bulls, will take place in late February.  For $20, particpants will get the chance to run against a dozen reindeer down 4th Avenue, with approximately 2000 people expected to take part. The reindeer’s owner,  is more worried about his reindeer that the people “I’m [...]

 (Pic: Nrk) It is at Christmas time that global interest in reindeer is heightened, as reindeer have long been associated with Santa Claus’ preferred method of transportation. In fact a quick look at Google analytics shows that it is only at christmas time that large numbers of people type ‘reindeer’ into their google search window. [...]

Two new certificates approved by the University of Alaska Board of Regents last week are aimed at increasing the number of veterinary technicians and resource managers in rural Alaska. – a key area of focus will be reindeer husbandry, as knowledge of this field was seen as a key marker of sustainable resource use, according [...]