They say tests on reindeer showed that the animal does respond to UV stimuli, unlike humans.

The ability might enable them to pick out food and predators in the “UV-rich” Arctic atmosphere, and to retain visibility in low light.

Details are published in the The Journal of Experimental Biology.

Seeing predators

UV light is invisible to humans. It has a wavelength which is shorter (and more energised) than “visible” light, ranging from 400 nanometres down to 10nm in wavelength.

The researchers first established that UV light was able to pass through the lens and cornea of the reindeer eye by firing light through a dissected sample. The tests showed that light down to a wavelength of about 350nm passed into the eye.

They then sought to prove that the animals could “see” the light, by testing the electrical response of the retina of anaesthetised reindeer to UV light.

“We used what is called an ERG (electroretinography), whereby we record the electrical response to light by the retina by putting a little piece of gold foil on the inside of the eyelid,” co-author Professor Glen Jeffery of University College London told BBC News.

The tests showed that photoreceptor cells or “cones” in the retina did respond to UV light.

“If you’re a bumblebee, you wouldn’t think much of what this animal is doing because it’s seeing in what’s called ‘near UV’ (about 320 to 400nm), but that’s still very high energy stuff.”

The researchers believe UV vision could enable the reindeer to distinguish food and predators in the “white-out” of the Arctic winter and the twilight of spring and autumn.

Lichen, on which the animal feeds, would appear black to reindeer eyes, they say, because it absorbs UV light. The animal’s traditional predator, wolves, would also appear darker against the snow, as their fur absorbs UV light.

Urine in the snow would also be more discernable in UV vision, which might alert reindeer to the scent of predators or other reindeer.

Neither did the animal appear to suffer any damage as a result of seeing in UV, say the researchers, or suffer the “snow blindness” humans can experience in the UV-rich Arctic environment.

Polar vision

Professor Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University London, who has explored the UV capabilities of bees, said the study showed what we call the “visible” spectrum did not apply to most of the animal kingdom.

“It’s further evidence that UV sensitivity across animals is the rule rather than the exception, and that humans and some other mammals are actually a minority in not having UV sensitivity,” he said.

Professor Chittka was not surprised the UV light appeared to do no damage to the reindeer retina. He said the tests suggested the eye would only admit lower-frequency UV light (“UV-A light”) rather than more damaging higher-frequency light (“UV-B”).

Further modelling and behavioural tests would also be needed to verify that reindeer’s apparent capacity to detect UV light really did result in “better detection of predators and arctic lichens”, he said.

The same research team which conducted the reindeer tests will soon repeat the same experiments on seals to see whether they can see into the UV region. Professor Jeffery believes many Arctic animals are likely to have the capacity.

“There’s no evidence that Arctic foxes or polar bears suffer from snow blindness, so I bet you that most of the Arctic animals up there are seeing into UV.”

The world’s fourth largest mining company Anglo American is conducting exploratory drillings in the same area in order to find nickel, copper, and gold deposits. Almost 100 people are working on samples and test drillings in the area.

The Canadian mining company First Quantum is also making exploratory drillings. The company is building a mine and an enrichment plant in Kevitsa, a good ten kilometres away from Kersilö.
The complex will cost EUR 250 million.
”The nickel and copper mine that is to be started early next year will employ nearly 300 people”, reports General Manager Reijo Uusitalo of the FQM Kevitsa Mining.

Both companies have lodged a claim application with the Finnish MInistry of Employment and the Economy in order to examine further the deposits in Sodankylä.
On the Finnish scale, the claim covers a huge area, namely roughly 400,000 hectares. In addition, four other foreign mining companies are prospecting for ore in Sodankylä.

”Sodankylä is a very promising area. We are searching for ore deposits in order that we could open one or several mines which could operate at least for the next 40 years”, says Director Jim Coppard from Anglo American, but he is unwilling to reveal any results.

Will reindeer herding face trouble when mining activities expand? Central Lapland is turning into a mining zone, stretching from Kolari through Kittilä to Sodankylä.
Kittilä is the home of Finland’s largest gold mine, while an iron ore mine is to be opened in Kolari. The industry is believed to employ at least 1,000 people in the next few years.
”Every night I wonder whether reindeer herding has any future”, says Pasi Salmi. ”The counterforce is so big that one could get depressed. Some good lichen areas were already lost under the Kevitsa mine. I wonder what Anglo American’s men will find”, Olli Pulju contemplates.

In Sodankylä, the number of reindeer owners is 578 and there are roughly 25,000 head of reindeer. The population is 8,002, which is one inhabitant more than last year.
”For the first time in 30 years, Sodankylä recorded a net migration gain. People are moving back from Southern Finland. A new apartment building is being constructed in the centre, and a new K-supermarket has been completed”, says Kauko Nurmela, the trade ombudsman of the municipality.

The mining boom can already be seen and heard. At the breakfast table in the Karhu Hotel in the centre, one can hear a buzz of English conversation. The hotel is fully booked.
All rental flats have also been reserved, even those located in remote villages, and there is a waiting list for the residences.

Today, the unemployment rate is 10 %, while in the 1990s it was as high as 32 %. Sodankylä has launched a housing programme, as on the western side of the municipality, the Swedish Lappland Goldminers is already operating the Pahtavaara gold mine, which employs more than 100 people.
”The atmosphere in Sodankylä is optimistic, as the unemployment rate has declined. I can see Kevitsa’s lights from the window of my home in Moskuvaara. I am only thinking about what will happen to the environment”, says Sini Veikanmaa, who goes to upper secondary school in Sodankylä.
Anglo American, operating in the Natura environmental protection area, has reported that it will take away all mud that comes up during drilling, while also recycling the waters of the drilling machine.
Veikko Virtanen, the chairman of the municipal board, believes that reindeer husbandry and mining can coexist in Sodankylä.

Source: Helsingin sanomat

Research by Sami experts shows that sterilized males can grow larger and so are better at digging for food — as Arctic temperatures vary more, thawing snow often refreezes to form thick ice over lichen pastures.

Neutered males are more able to break through ice with their hooves or antlers, and seem more willing than other males to move aside and share food with calves that can die of starvation in bad freeze-thaw winters like 2000-01.

“To make herds more resilient in the future, we need to re-learn the traditional knowledge of castration,” said professor Svein Mathiesen, coordinator of the University of the Arctic’s Institute of Circumpolar Reindeer Husbandry.

More castration “could be useful to adapt to climate change,” he told Reuters in the Arctic city of Tromsoe. “These animals are very good diggers for the small calves in the most critical period of the winter.” Pasture this year is good.

Castration has traditionally been used by reindeer herders, partly to make wild animals more docile. Herders on the Yamal peninsula in Russia still neuter about half of all males — usually by biting into the testicles with their teeth.

Far fewer animals are castrated outside Russia. About 100,000 Sami own about 2.5 million reindeer in homelands in the Nordic countries and Russia.

HALF-CASTRATION

The traditional Sami biting technique aims for “half-castration” — under which the animals become sterile but still produce some of the male hormone testosterone that promotes muscle growth.

Sami in Norway, where laws limit castration to surgery with anesthetics, are now experimenting with a vaccine to recreate the effects of half-castration.

No interest in sex also helps neutered males in winter.

“Males castrated in the traditional way would have an increased chance of survival over other males since they maintain body weight and condition during the rutting season,” according to a research document by Eli Risten Nergaard of Sami University College.

The Arctic region is warming at double the global rate in a trend blamed by the U.N.’s panel of climate scientists on greenhouse gases from mankind’s burning of fossil fuels.

Yamal herders castrate many of their reindeer, partly because they need strong, docile animals to pull heavy sleds. In Norway, Sami have come to rely on snow-scooters and get most money for calf meat, meaning most males are slaughtered young.

The Sami castration study indicates the complexities of adapting to the impacts of climate change. Many other scientists are focusing on issues such as how to cope with river floods or rising sea levels, or ways to develop drought-resistant crops.

Castrated reindeer also keep their antlers for much of the winter while normal males shed their antlers each autumn after the mating season. That implies that Rudolph, pulling Father Christmas’s sled, has been castrated.

Source: REUTERS

The prospect of Russia exporting halal reindeer meat products to the desert kingdom first came up last month when the governor of Russia’s Arctic Yamal Nenets region, where most of Russia’s gas is produced, was in Qatar for investment talks.

“We told the Qatari leadership that we don’t only have oil and gas. We also have reindeer. And then a Sheikh asked, ‘Is reindeer halal? Can Muslims eat it?’ It turns out they can,” Yamal’s governor Dmitry Kobylkin told Reuters in an interview.

“They were so surprised to learn there exists another kind of meat that they haven’t tried and that it can be halal. Gold mining is interesting for them, gas, infrastructure, and now investment in halal reindeer meat processing,” Kobylkin said.

Upon return to Yamal, home to 700,000 reindeer and 500,000 people, Kobylkin had the state-owned Yamal Reindeer Company arrange for ritual Islamic slaughter and the trial production of 1,000 cans of halal reindeer meat.

This week Qatari officials will get their first taste of reindeer at a Russia-Qatar investment forum in Doha where Kobylkin’s deputy will present the Reindeer Co.’s business plan to expand into halal meat production and product exports.

A spokeswoman for the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority said she could not comment on its investment interests.

“Our plan is to build a separate slaughter house, canning and sausage factory. We hope for a joint venture with Qatar,” said Sergei Uramayev, a representative of the Reindeer Co.

Uramayev also said that after consulting with the Imam of the Salekhard Mosque in Yamal’s capital, the firm decided the project would also market halal canned reindeer within Russia.

“There is a huge demand among Russia’s Muslim community for halal products. Until two-three years ago, you didn’t see any halal stores. Now they’re opening everywhere,” Salekhard Mosque Imam Abdullah Hazrat said.

Reindeer herding and meat production has been Yamal’s No. 3 industry after oil and gas — Yamal produces 85 percent of Russia’s gas and 15 percent of its oil — ever since the Yamal Reindeer Co. received EU certification to export in 2006.

(Source: Writing by Jessica Bachman; Editing by Paul Casciato)

Reindeer were brought into the famous London toy shop 'Hamleys' this christmas. Photo: Darren Hector http://www.wildlifephotography.tv/the-saddest-pictures-ive-ever-taken/

In recent weeks, there has been quite a number of stories (in the english language media)  that feature reindeer being ‘mistreated’, coupled with news releases, video and protest letters. These protests have focussed on the treatment of reindeer by reindeer herders who depend on reindeer for their livelihoods and have been practicing the livelihood for millenia. This has become an annual event, as there is no time to tug on the heartstrings of potential donors than christmas, a celebration that has in the last century, again primarily in the english speaking world, become indelibly linked with reindeer (See story on the creation of this connection here on the Reindeer Portal).

These media driven events drop off the radar in January. However, those concerned about the mistreatment of reindeer might do well to take a lok at their own back yard. There are no figures for the number of reindeer that are being housed in the US and UK that are kept for the entertaining of the public, like circus acts dragged out for display. Reindeer are being housed  in an art gallery in Berlin, on a garage in Rovaniemi, Finland, running loose in strawberry fields in Santa Monica, California and even housed in London’s most famous  toy shop (albeit briefly, after protests about live penguins being on display got peoples’ attention). Numerous reineder parades are held across Britain these days – and their welfare is suffering.

These animals have been removed from their herd, forced to live with perhaps only one or two other reindeer, are housed in highly artificial and restricted conditions, and have to live in moist temperate climates outside the natural habitat in which they thrive.  So far, there have not been any major media campaigns by animal rights organisations to eliminate what is an obvious form of cruelty to reindeer, presumably it being deemed easier to target peoples far away about whose lives little is known.

Reindeer for Entertainment. Source: Animal Dramatics UK

Sami Ruismäki and his reindeer gave a sleigh ride to some children on the upper level of a parking garage in downtown Rovaniemi. The reindeer park will be open until Epiphany. Photo: TIMO LINDHOLM, Source Helsingin Sanomat

Tourism has brought reindeer to the centre of Rovaniemi. Behind the project are Rovaniemen Kehitys Oy, a company promoting tourism in Rovaniemi, and local entrepreneurs, according to a report in Helsingin sanomat.

The Sirmakko family has set up a reindeer park in downtown Rovaniemi, on the upper deck of the parking garage adjacent to the City Hotel. Cars have been removed to the floor below.
”The reindeer will be kept in the reindeer parking garage until Epiphany. Depending on the day, the number of reindeer on the adventure level will be around six”, says entrepreneur Taina Riskilä.

”Entrepreneurs and tourists alike have long wished to see reindeer in the centre of the city”, claims coordinator Risto Saukkoriipi from Rovaniemen Kehitys.

”Today’s tourism is so hectic that not all visitors have time to go to the nearest reindeer farm ten kilometres away from Rovaniemi. They are happy if they have a chance to see some reindeer for example after having been to a restaurant. Tourists’ life is evening-oriented”, Saukkoriipi argues.
According to Adjunct Professor Mauri Nieminen, who works as a senior researcher at the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, the reindeer park marks a new nadir in reindeer herding degradation.
”A parking garage full of petrol fumes is not a natural environment for reindeer but is bound to cause suffering to those animals”, Nieminen charges.

The Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute has launched a study to find out how the increased feeding on farms and the constant proximity of human beings affect the disposition of reindeer.
”Farm reindeer are more domesticated. We suspect that if they are released into the wild they could more easily be hit by a car or be caught by predators”, Nieminen explains.

In the previous winter season, a total of 152,000 out of Finland’s approximately 200,000 reindeer were fed on farms or in the forest if necessary.

This being the season – it is worth revisiting this story on the Reindeer Portal that unpicks the story of Santa Claus, reindeer, and the appropriation of the cultural elements of Sami reindeer husbandry to service the needs of the tourist industry, most especially in Rovaniemi, Finland. Read the story here.

Reindeer froze to death after falling through ice. Pic: NRK

As many as 50 reindeer froze to death after falling through thin ice near Kautokeino, Norway yesterday according to a report in NRK Sami Radio. This is a dangerous time of year for reindeer and their herders, as although lakes and rivers are frozen, the ice is thin and liable to break.

Herders attempted to rescue the animals back to land by using a boat and walking on the ice – extremely risky work, but according to Mikkel NN Eira, as quoted in the article:

We had to and try get the animals onto land… We had to use a boat as we pushed on the ice in front of us.  When we came to areas where the ice was thin and we noticed that the ice began to break up, we had to hurry to jump in the boat. There were many times that my foot went through the ice.

Eira called it a ‘tragedy’, with some reindeer remaining locked in the water. Eira even tried bringing a reindeer inside the house to warm it up but it too succumbed to the cold. He said to NRK Sami Radio,

It was mostly females who went through and they would surely have calved.  This is a loss of at least NOK 100,000 in income.  The animals are our livelihood.

Carsten Höller, Soma, 2010 Installationsansicht Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin, 2010 © VG Bild-Kunst 2010 / Carsten Höller, Foto: Attilio Maranzano

A bizarre exhibition by the renowned artist Carsten Höller has just opened at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art museum. “Soma” also offers the chance for a limited number of guests to overnight in a bed suspended above a collection of animals that includes reindeer, canaries and mice for €1,000. In total there are 12 reindeer in the exhibit.

What’s the reindeer connection? Höller has based his exhibit on elements of a verse in the ancient Hindu text, the Rigveda, which reads: “We have drunk of the soma; we have become immortal, we have seen the light; we have found the Gods.”

In the 20th century, philologists, ethnologists and botanists have tried to identify the main ingredient of the enlightening beverage, the ingredients of which were lost over the years, the museum said in a statement.

But in 1968, American banker and hobby mycologist Gordon R. Wasson made the highly-disputed suggestion that the red and white poisonous fly Amanita mushroom may have been the ingredient, and that it may have been absorbed through the urine of reindeer, which eat the plant as part of their natural diet.

Incidentally, that mushroom has a much older connection with reindeer and story being perhaps the connection between the earliest representations of flying reindeer well south of their current range in modern day Mongolia. You can read that story on the Reindeer Portal

Source: The Local See a Video from the show here (in German)

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, and to determine what they’re willing to pay for them.

Greg Finstad, the manager of UAF’s Reindeer Research Program, hopes to see a day when customers eagerly throw a petite reindeer steak on the grill.

“We’re trying to establish the connection — the business relationship between the retailer and consumer,” Finstad said.

UAF researchers began providing Home Grown Market with sides of reindeer last week to gauge demand for the product. The small Geraghty Avenue grocery, which specializes in locally grown foods, is offering reindeer steaks and ground meat.

The market study is expected to last for the next year. Throughout the process, Home Grown Market has agreed to open its books so UAF can determine the specific cost of selling the meat.

The reindeer isn’t cheap — steaks are selling for $25 per pound — but they offer a local product that’s been virtually impossible to find in the past.

Alaska’s reindeer has almost all gone toward sausage, and even the choice cuts went into the grinder. Because of that, reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula have little concept of the worth of a good reindeer steak.

“They’re raising these reindeer, but they have no idea what their market value is,” Finstad said.

Home Grown Market owner Jeff Johnson said sales have been modest in the first week, although they’ve grown each day. Even so, Johnson said his reasons for participating in the market study aren’t purely financial.

“In my opinion, it’s not about making money — it’s about helping an entire industry,” Johnson said. “If we can get an entire industry going, all of us are going to benefit.”

Finstad said the Reindeer Research Program isn’t in a position to supply a large grocery store with meat, and that at this point it doesn’t want to.

He’s counting on a small store owner like Johnson to help provide customers with guidance on how to cook reindeer, which is an important step in promoting the meat.

“We need to educate the consumer,” he said. “You can’t do that with a large, impersonal grocery chain.”

Both Finstad and Johnson rave about the flavor of reindeer, but say preparation is key. Finstad said people often cook reindeer like they would beef, which almost always ends with disappointing results.

Johnson compared reindeer to lamb, with a rich, delicate flavor. He said a medium-rare preparation, with some grilled onions and minimal seasonings, seems to highlight it best.

Reindeer also is more affordable than it would initially appear, he said, since servings are petite steaks of 4 ounces or less.

“You’re buying this because it’s a unique flavor,” Johnson said. “It’s going to complement a good wine and some local veggies. It’s not a big piece of meat to be the main attraction.”

Finstad said reindeer is more nutritious than alternatives like beef, with high protein and low fat and cholesterol. He said it’s among the most tender meats available, and has a flavor that’s rich without tasting gamy.

The study requires a long-term commitment, Finstad said. He expects some customers will initially buy reindeer simply because it’s a novelty, but said it’s important to know if they’ll come back for more.

If the market study is a success, Finstad said the Reindeer Research Program wants to shift the supply chain to Seward Peninsula herders. He said there are no long-term plans for UAF to become a commercial supplier of reindeer meat.

“We want to work ourselves out of a job,” Finstad said.
Source – By Jeff Richardson Fairbanks Daily News-Miner