Reindeer distribution
The reindeer (caribou in North America) is a widespread and numerous species in the northern Holarctic, being present in both tundra and taiga (boreal forest).
[1] Originally, the reindeer was found in Scandinavia, eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia, and northern China north of the 50th latitude.
In North America, it was found in Canada, Alaska (United States), and the northern contiguous USA from Washington to Maine.
During the late Pleistocene era, reindeer were found further south, such as at Nevada, Tennessee, and Alabama[3] in North America and Spain in Europe.
[1][4] Today, wild reindeer have disappeared from many areas within this large historical range, especially from the southern parts, where it vanished almost everywhere.
The George River reindeer herd in the tundra of Quebec and Labrador in eastern Canada, once numbered world's largest 8–900,000 animals, stands December 2011 at 74,000 – a drop of up to 92% because of Iron-ore mining, flooding for hydropower and road building.
Although formerly more widespread in Scandinavia, the last remaining wild mountain reindeer in Europe are found in portions of southern Norway.
[16][17] In North America, because of its vast range in a wide diversity of ecosystems, the woodland caribou is further distinguished by a number of ecotypes.
[20] In 2018 there were three left;[21] the last member, a female, was transported to a wildlife rehab center in Canada, thus marking the extirpation of the caribou from the Lower 48.
[27] Its range spans approximately 260,000 km2 (64,000,000 acres), from Aklavik, Northwest Territories to Dawson City, Yukon to Kaktovik, Alaska on the Beaufort Sea.
The Porcupine caribou (R. tarandus groenlandicus (originally named Tarandus rangifer ogilviensis Millais 1915 after the Ogilvie Mountains, their Yukon winter range;[28] see Reindeer: Taxonomy) has a vast range that includes northeastern Alaska and the Yukon and is therefore cooperatively managed by government agencies and aboriginal peoples from both countries.
[29][30] The Gwich'in people followed the Porcupine herd—their primary source of food, tools, and clothing—for thousands of years—according to oral tradition, for as long as 20,000 years.
Teshekpuk Lake is also in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) had approved oil and gas drilling on 11 January 2006.
[42][43] The NPR-A is the "single largest parcel of public land in the United States" covering about 23 million acres".
The reserve's eastern border sits about 100 miles to the west of the more famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The leasing of Teshekpuk Lake land to industry was protested by the Iñupiat and others who sent 300,000 letters to the US Secretary of the Interior and the ConocoPhillips CEO over the summer of 2006.
Industry will be allowed to run "roads, pipelines and drill rigs" in the very sensitive habitat areas, including the Teshekpuk caribou herd calving grounds.
"The Beverly herd’s crossing of the Thelon River to its traditional calving grounds near Beverly Lake was part of the lives of the Dene aboriginal people for 8,000 years, as revealed by an unbroken archaeological record of deep layers of caribou bones and stone tools in the banks of the Thelon River (Gordon 2005).
"[50][51] The Beverly herd (located primarily in Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories; with portions in Nunavut, Manitoba and Alberta) and the Qamanirjuaq Herd (located primarily in Manitoba, Nunavut; with portions in the southeastern NWT and northeastern Saskatchewan) fall under the auspices of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board.
It was suggested the Ahiak and Beverly herds switched calving grounds and the Beverly may have moved "near the western Queen Maud Gulf coast to the north of the herd’s "traditional" calving ground in the Gary Lakes area north of Baker Lake.
A population of barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus) summers on Victoria Island and crosses the ice of Dolphin and Union Strait to the lands around Coronation Gulf for winter.
[13] The Bluenose East caribou herd began a recovery with a population of approximately 122,000 in 2010,[64] which is being credited to the establishment of Tuktut Nogait National Park.
They prefer lichen-rich mature forests[70] and mainly live in marshes, bogs, lakes and river regions.
[71][72] The historic range of the boreal woodland caribou covered over half of present-day Canada,[73] stretching from Alaska to Newfoundland and Labrador and as far south as New England, Idaho and Washington.
Genetic, behavioral and morphological differences from other caribou and reindeer are so great that a recent revision returned them to full species status.
[citation needed] On 29 August 2016, the Norwegian Environment Agency announced the death of 323 reindeer by the effects of a lightning strike in Hardangervidda.
[88] On 3 December 2018 a hiker in Northern Norway reported a sighting, and posted photos, of a rare white reindeer calf.
[89] The Svalbard reindeer (R. tarandus platyrhynchus) from Svalbard Island is very small compared to other subspecies (a phenomenon known as insular dwarfism) and is the smallest of all the subspecies, with females having a length of approximately 150 cm (59 in), and a weight around 53 kg (117 lb) in the spring and 70 kg (150 lb) in the autumn.
The Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus), is found in the wild in only two areas of the Fennoscandia peninsula of Northern Europe, in Finnish/Russian Karelia and a small population in central south Finland.
Although both the flag and the coat of arms of the territory contain an image of a reindeer, a decision was taken in 2011 to completely eradicate the animals from the island because of the environmental damage they cause,[99][100] which was done so with a team of Norwegian Sami hunters from 2013 to 2017, which revealed the true count to be around 6,750.
