Reindeer Blog

(Arctic Sounder) Pacific Environment, an international environmental NGO focused on protecting the living environment of the Pacific Rim, will travel to Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia  (March 7-16) with a group of indigenous leaders from the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, as part of a cultural and informational exchange to strengthen ties between [...]

Sarah Palin is hard to miss these days, positioning herself perhaps for a run at the 2012 US Presidential elections. Here she pays homage to that essential attribute for potential US politicians, being able to use a gun (though she missed over 5 times!), taking down a caribou. Source: The Daily Caller

Across the Far North, populations of caribou — an indispensable source of food and clothing for indigenous people — are in steep decline. Scientists point to rising temperatures and a resource-development boom as the prime culprits. by Ed Struzik, from Environment 360 In late July, a group of Inuit hunters set off by boat along [...]

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 [...]

The Reindeer Blog reported some months ago that Canada’s only reindeer herd (in Inuvik, in the North West Territories, managed by the Kunnek Resurces Development Corporation) was missing. They obviously have been found, but to earn extra money, their manager, Lloyd Binder (a descendant of the Reindeer Project from the early 20th Century that brought [...]

(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 [...]