Reindeer Blog

In a long interview with the newspaper Vedomosti, the  new (ish) Kola Peninsula regional Governor Dmitry Dmitriyenko said that his administration plans to establish 100-200 km wide zones for reindeer herds. This will help raise productivity, the governor argues. Today, reindeer herds migrate over major parts of the peninsula and unlike reindeer husbandry in the [...]

In a billowing cloud of white, Russia’s Arctic herders drive thousands of panting and wild-eyed reindeer through the knee-deep snow to the first slaughter this year. But warm winters in recent years have forced herders here in the far northern Kola Peninsula to delay for months the rounding up of their reindeer from the vast [...]

Russian scientists have doubts over whether global warming is here to stay and whether it’s man made. But for the Saami in Russia’s north, the mild winters already pose a threat to their traditional way of life. All around the Arctic, the effects of a temperature rise are visible, and native inhabitants of the tundras in [...]

by Catherine Marciano.  JARFJORD, Norway (AFP) – On Norway’s border with Russia, the consequences of climate change are affecting the reindeer population as rising temperatures hit food stocks and industry growth eats into vital grazing land. “Over the past three years, I’ve had to give some hay to my 800 reindeer during the coldest months. It’s more [...]

(By Luke Harding, The Guardian) For 1,000 years the indigenous Nenets people have herded their reindeer along the Yamal peninsula. But their survival in this remote region of north-west Siberia is under serious threat from climate change as Russia’s ancient permafrost melts. t is one of the world’s last great wildernesses, a 435-mile long peninsula [...]

The state Swedish television network SVT recently released a 6 part documentary that is a tour of various peoples and places in the Arctic that are already being affected by climate change, with a Swedish Sami host. While a number of such documentaries are being made these days, what marks this one out is its [...]

(Pic & Story NPI) In what researchers described as an extremely rare event, a polar bear has killed a reindeer on the islands of Svalbard late last year. According to a report from the Norwegian Polar Institute. The Polar Bear, a female, is one with a satellite transmitter attached, allowing researchers to monitor the bears [...]

(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. [...]

Sami reindeer herder Olav Mathis Eira was in London recently to make a direct appeal to the British Prime Minister. “Climate change is threatening our economy as reindeer herders. Because this is part of our traditional way of life, if the economy goes, probably the entire Sami culture would go with it.” The story was [...]

(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 [...]