Reindeer Blog

By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS YELLOWKNIFE – Once, caribou wandered over the Arctic tundra in herds that took days to pass. So great were their numbers – even 20 years ago – that they were able to shake off man’s puny imprint on the great barren lands like so many flies on a rump. “There [...]

ON THE PORCUPINE RIVER TUNDRA, Yukon Territory (Source: AP) — Here on the endlessly rolling and tussocky terrain of northwest Canada, where man has hunted caribou since the Stone Age, the vast antlered herds are fast growing thin. And it’s not just here. Across the tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east, Canada’s Beverly [...]

Reindeer and caribou numbers are plummeting around the world. The first global review of their status has found that populations are declining almost everywhere they live, from Alaska and Canada, to Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia. The iconic deer is vital to indigenous peoples around the circumpolar north. Yet it is increasingly difficult for the deer [...]

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 [...]

(Source – Ed Struzik, The Province, see below) Warm, wet winters and hot, dry summers reduce numbers. In the summer of 1996, biologist Frank Miller was flying along the coast of Bathurst Island searching for Peary caribou, found only in the High Arctic of Canada, when he spied a dark spot on the sea ice. [...]

(Picture Eric Post)  Global warming may be the reason for a decrease in the number of caribou calves being born in West Greenland, U.S. researchers said.Biologist Eric Post said data show the timing of peak food availability no longer corresponds to the timing of caribou births, the university said Friday in release.  The study, conducted [...]

(This article from CBC News 08.01.2008) More than 3,000 reindeer in the Northwest Territories have somehow disappeared, leaving herders scrambling to find them and prompting concerns about what threats the lost reindeer may pose to wild caribou. The territory’s only reindeer herd inhabits the northern part of the N.W.T., living unsupervised on Richards Island near [...]

Industry analysts say that future development on the Yamal peninsula, the world’s largest area of reindeer husbandry, will dwarf Shtokman, another giant deposit, located in the stormy Barents Sea. Yamal holds around one third of Gazprom’s reserves, or more than 10 trillion cubic metres. Thanks to these reserves, Gazprom have been flexing their muscles towards foreign [...]

With climate change expected to increase temperature fluctuations and variability most particularly in the Arctic, the population crash of the so called Peary caribou in the Canadian Arctic gives some insight to what happens to rangifer tarandus when pastures are locked out as a result of frequent freezing and thawing. In northwestern North America, recent warming [...]

(Pic. Canadian Press) An international network of scientists is examining caribou and wild reindeer herds across the Arctic, from Alaska and the Yukon to Russia and Greenland, in a report from CBC. The four-year, $4-million International Polar Year project aims to gather consistent data across the circumpolar region on those herds, how they are changing, [...]