R. tarandus groenlandicus[1]), the subspecies of the reindeer or caribou found in Alaska, United States, and Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Canada.

Their range spans the Alaska-Yukon border and is a valued resource cooperatively managed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Canadian wildlife agencies and local aboriginal peoples.

[3][4] The Porcupine caribou was first named Rangifer ogilviensis Millais, 1915 [5] after the Ogilvie Mountains, part of its Yukon winter range.

Grant's caribou was described as a small, pale form occupying a limited range at the west end of the Alaska Peninsula and nearby islands.

Subsequently, taxonomists comparing Alaskan or Yukon migratory barren-ground caribou with those of mainland Canada labelled their Alaska/Yukon samples as R. t. granti.

[16][17][18] Thus, R. a. granti was rediscovered in its original, limited range and its type species in the American Museum of Natural History remains valid.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Canadian wildlife agencies, and local aboriginal peoples cooperatively manage the Porcupine herd.

[25]: 2  On July 17, 1987, the United States and the Canadian governments signed the "Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd," a treaty designed to protect the subspecies from damage to its habitat and migration routes.

Some barren-ground caribou herds have "declined more than 90 per cent from historic averages", causing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), to sound the alarm.

[2][22] Climate change and the increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as unprecedented late slow melting, negatively affect the Porcupine herd.

It is the largest protected wilderness in the United States and was created by Congress under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.

[31] On December 22, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a provision that opened the 1002 area of ANWR to oil and gas drilling, into law.

The Act contains provisions that would open 1.5 million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

The plain "stretches west from the Yukon border more than a hundred miles, a flat expanse of tundra laced with tussock wetlands and braided rivers.

"[21] Ivvavik National Park protects a portion of the calving grounds of the Porcupine herd and restricts the number of people who may visit annually.