Reindeer Blog

The World Society for the Protection of Animals has added their voice to what seems certain to to become an annual right of passage – animals rights organisations using the Christmas season to raise their own profile with media friendly releases about the ‘mistreatreatment’ of reindeer by reindeer herders. Another organisation, VIVA, launched a similar [...]

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 [...]

While the world has heard a lot about the impact of the Icelandic volcano on air traffic and the economy, what about its impact on Iceland’s reindeer? In the last few weeks, the world could hardly have failed to have heard about the Icelandic volcano with the difficult to pronounce (for non Icelandic speakers) name. [...]

A multi stakeholder seminar was held in the Kautokeino, Norway yesterday which focussed on the issue of mining in Finnmark, an issue of some controversy in the region since the passing of the Finnmark Act which devolved desicion making powers over multiple resource issues to the region of Finnmark. The seminar was attended by the [...]

In northern Norway, summer pastures for reindeer are often located on the coastal islands of Finnmark and Troms counties. Traditionally, reindeer swim across from the mainland to the islands but with increasing pasture losses and migratory route fragmentation, since the early 1970s, many herders use a reindeer ‘ferry’ to transport reindeer over distances that have [...]

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 [...]

Reindeer have no internal body clock, according to scientists. Researchers found that the animals are missing a “circadian clock” that influences processes including the sleep-wake cycle and metabolism. This enables them to better cope with the extreme Arctic seasons of polar day, when the sun stays up all day, and polar night, when it does [...]

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, [...]

There was an interesting interview in RusBusiness News recently with Aleksandr Mazharov, the Director of the Department for International and Interregional Relations of YaNAO (Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug). Obviously, the vast majority and indeed focus of the Yamal economy is its oil and gas reserves.  95.5% of the regions exported products were oil and gas [...]

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 [...]