A Sleighful of Science About Reindeer

by L. E. Carmichael

No matter which winter holiday you celebrate, we here at Sci/Why wish you the very best of the season. For those raised in the Santa Claus tradition, here are some festive facts about reindeer!

By I, Perhols, CC BY 2.5, Link

1) Reindeer and caribou are the same species, Rangifer tarandus. Some people use the common name "reindeer" for the European subspecies, and "caribou" for the North American subspecies. Others prefer to use "reindeer" for domestic herds, saving "caribou" for wild herds. For our holiday purposes, I will stick with reindeer!

2) Yes, there ARE domestic herds! Reindeer herding has been practiced by Indigenous peoples across Europe and Asia for thousands of years, and now occurs in Alaska, too. Reindeerherding.org is a fantastic resource if you want to know more about these peoples and their cultures.

3) Recent research suggests that the Saami, one of the Indigenous herding peoples, have more words for snow and ice than the Inuit. This is because, in addition to the words referring to snow and ice themselves, they have an additional vocabulary that references how snow and ice will affect the safety and nutrition of the herds that are central to their culture and survival.

4) Reindeer are the only deer species in which both males and females have antlers. They drop and regrow them every year.

5) Reindeer can survive temperatures as low as -50C without shivering or increasing their metabolic rate to raise their body heat.

6) Reindeer have oleic acid in the marrow of their leg bones. This acid acts as an antifreeze, preventing frostbite.

7) In North America, reindeer live in two major habitat types - the barren grounds (tundra) and the boreal forest. Most populations of forest reindeer, commonly known as "woodland caribou" are threatened or endangered in Canada, due to habitat loss and increased predation.

8) Woodland reindeer depend on old growth forests, habitats that have existed long enough for lichens to grow. They prefer ground lichens ("reindeer moss"), but will also eat arboreal (tree-dwelling) species like horse hair and witch's hair lichens, when ice covers the ground.

9) Climate change has increased the chances of alternating snow/rain events, or freeze/thaw cycles, that cause ice to build up on the ground. These "lock outs" prevent reindeer from digging down to their food - in bad years, both domestic and wild herds suffer from starvation.

10) Lichens contain usinic acid, which protects them against UV radiation. It also makes them unpalatable and difficult for most herbivores to digest. However, recent research shows that reindeer have a special gut bacterium, Eubacterium rangiferina, that breaks down usinic acid, allowing them to digest this unusual food. In some cultures, partially-digested lichen from reindeer stomaches is considered a delicacy. Consider adding that to your holiday feast!

A Frozen World Returns

By Claire Eamer

The wolf pup cleaned, preserved, and ready for display.
Yukon Government photo.

More than 50,000 years ago, when most of Canada was buried under kilometres-thick ice sheets, a wolf pup was born in one of the few places untouched by the ice -- a dry, grassy plain that extended across most of what is now the Yukon. No more than eight weeks later, the little wolf died, probably buried in a landslip and smothered while it slept in its den. The cold muck froze around it and stayed frozen, summer and winter, preserving the small body.

Just over two years ago, on July 13, 2016, gold miners on Last Chance Creek near Dawson City washed away some frozen sediment and found the little pup. It was frozen and dried but still remarkably well preserved. The miners immediately called in palaeontologist Grant Zazula and his colleagues in the Yukon government's Palaeontology Program. They were delighted with the find. To his knowledge, it's the only ice-age wolf ever found, Zazula says.

Only half of the caribou calf's body was found.
Yukon Government photo.

That was the second spectacular find of the 2016 summer. Six weeks earlier, miners on Paradise Hill -- another famous location in the historic Klondike Goldfields -- had discovered the frozen and mummified remains of a caribou calf. It wasn't as complete as the wolf pup, but nearly all of the front half of the body had survived, with skin, muscle, and hair intact.

Zazula and his colleagues knew they had something special, but they didn't realise quite how special until the results of radiocarbon dating came back. Both animals lived more than 50,000 years ago, the limit for radiocarbon dating. And the caribou calf had been found in association with a layer of volcanic ash that had settled to the ground about 80,000 years ago.

Yukon government palaeontologists Grant Zazula and Elizabeth Hall excavate
the caribou calf from the frozen muck of Paradise Hill near Dawson City, Yukon.
Yukon Government photo

Specimens that old are rare anywhere, and especially in the Yukon where the undulating landscape left few places for dead animals to lie and freeze undisturbed. There was no rush to preserve the bodies, Zazula says.

"We had them kicking around in our deep freeze for a couple of months. They were very well freeze-dried already."

The wolf pup's head before preservation, ice crystals visible.
Yukon Government photo

However, if anyone other than experts was going to see them, more work was required. Yukon Heritage applied for help from the experts at the Canadian Conservation Institute. And they got it. Today, both small bodies have been carefully thawed and preserved in a way that will make it possible to display them to the public. They are currently on display in Dawson at the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, in whose traditional territory they were found. Later this fall, they will be moved to Whitehorse and a permanent display at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre.

Meanwhile, scientific interest is building. Zazula is fielding calls from Pleistocene scholars around the world and brainstorming with them and his Yukon colleagues about what kind of questions the little corpses might answer. Is the wolf pup related to the wolves that live in the Yukon today, or did the Pleistocene wolf disappear to be replaced by a new population? Does the caribou calf have relatives living today? If so, which of the many caribou herds do they belong to? And that's just the beginning.

The thawing permafrost and melting ice of the world are revealing more and more clues to the past, both animal and human. That's the subject of my latest book, Out of the Ice: How Climate Change is Revealing the Past. The Yukon pup and calf are too recent to make it into the book, but it contains plenty of other fascinating evidence of lost or forgotten worlds.

The Endangered Caribou

By Marie Powell

CC Jacob W. Frank

The caribou (Rangifer tarandus) is a remarkable animal. Part of the deer family, caribou are unique because both males and females have antlers. Also known as reindeer, caribou have roamed North America for some 1.8 million years. Barren-ground caribou evolved from these early ancestors. The Woodland and Peary caribou have been with us since before the Pleistocene epoch, or Great Ice Age.

The thing I like best about writing middle-grade non-fiction books is that you're always learning something new. The research I'm doing this week has led me north to the Yukon and Nunavut, where I've been learning about the caribou. For instance, some populations of caribou have been reduced by 95 percent in the past 15-20 years. That seems incredible.

I've also been reading Bill Waiser's A World We have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905, and his vivid description of the buffalo herds on the prairies a century ago. These buffalo created a whole ecosystem just by foraging on the land, Waiser says. The wanton slaughter of some 4-5 million buffalo in the 1870s led to famine and severe environmental change across the prairies. Looking out my window at the busy streets of Regina, I try to imagine how different life would be today if that hadn't happened. So, when I read about the decimation of the caribou herds, I can't help but wonder what effect this will have on our future.

CCAlfred Cook  

Caribou fall into two groups: populations that remain in one area and spread out there after calving (sedentary), and herds that move or migrate to a common calving area each year (migratory). They range across the tundra and boreal forest areas, from the Arctic and south into most Canadian provinces. As well as predators and hunting, changing weather patterns affect the foraging of migrating herds, which in turn affects the health of the females and calves. So does loss of habitat due to human development in northern regions. All of this threatens the caribou's survival.

Scientists are working together with the Inuit to see how changing weather patterns affect the ecosystem of the north. For example, studies of the sea ice show how important that ecosystem is to all life in the north. One resource that brings out these findings is the Inuit Siku (Sea Ice) Atlas at http://sikuatlas.ca/sea_ice.html, as Claire Eamer shares in her Sci/Why post from 2013.

CCAllen Shimada 

Researchers have also turned to traditional Inuit knowledge to try to save the caribou. A 2012 report calls for minimizing development activities in caribou ranges, among other suggestions. Governments have responded with what the CBC calls a "patchwork" of conservation activities. Some provinces -- like Saskatchewan -- moved to limit development, and more recently others (including Alberta) have begun to act along those lines as well.

Will our efforts be in time to save these majestic animals?

Here are some more links to information about the Arctic and the caribou:

Bergerud, A. T. “Caribou.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/caribou/

Braun, David Maxwell. "Inuit Knowledge Critical to Arctic Science." National Geographic Society , August 18, 2011 http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/18/inuit-knowledge-critical-to-arctic-science/

Eamer, Claire. "Over, under, and on Arctic sea ice." Sci/Why 2013. http://sci-why.blogspot.ca/2013/03/over-under-and-on-arctic-sea-ice.html

Lunn, Susan. "Caribou still under threat despite changing political climate, report says." CBC News, Dec. 14, 2015. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/caribou-still-under-threat-despite-changing-political-climate-report-says-1.3359751

Northern Involvement: Changing Animal Populations - Science Canada - July 22, 2016 http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=CC02ABC9-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99f_VVHuR2I&feature=youtu.be 

Rudolph, T. D., Drapeau, P., St-Laurent, M-H. and Imbeau, L. 2012. "Status of Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in the James Bay Region of Northern Quebec." (Scientific report) http://www.gcc.ca/pdf/Final-Rapport-Status-of-Woodland-Caribou-James-Bay_Eeyou-Istchee.pdf

"Traditional Inuit knowledge combines with science to shape weather insights." Science Daily, April 7 2010. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100407190000.htm

Weatherhead et al. "Changes in weather persistence: Insight from Inuit knowledge." Global Environmental Change, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.02.002 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378010000087

Marie Powell lives on Treaty 4 land in Regina, Saskatchewan. She is the author of close to 40 children's and young adult books, including the historical fantasy Hawk (2015). She enjoys writing about science, history, and any subjects that help promote literacy.

...And Eight Tiny Reindeer

By Claire Eamer



Zeus Box Studio image

Reindeer feature prominently in the media at this time of year -- especially that very rare subspecies of reindeer that flies through the air and pulls a sled carrying a fellow in a red suit.
But more about that them later.

Most reindeer roam the forest and tundra of Scandinavia and Russia and other parts of northern Europe and Asia, as far east as eastern Siberia and northern China. There’s even a small herd of reindeer on a mountain in Scotland.

In the same kind of habitat in northern North America, you find caribou. They look like reindeer and behave pretty much like reindeer. So what’s the difference?

Essentially none, says Don Russell, a Yukon caribou biologist and founding coordinator of the CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network (CARMA), an international organization concerned with the state of the Arctic's wild caribou and reindeer.

"The reindeer is just an Old World caribou. They are the same species, Rangifer tarandus," he says. And they're the dominant large herbivore, or plant-eater, in the circumpolar ecosystem. In fact, in most parts of the North, they're the only large herbivore.

That’s not to say that all reindeer and caribou are identical. There are quite a few variations in body shape and appearance, but those variations depend more on the kind of habitat the caribou and reindeer live in than what continent they come from.

There are three general groupings of reindeer and three matching groupings of caribou. Marine reindeer and the very similar Peary caribou of northern Canada live on Arctic islands or near the Arctic coast. Tundra reindeer and barrenground caribou tend to gather in large herds and migrate across vast swaths of territory, mainly north of the boreal forest. Forest reindeer and woodland caribou live in the northern regions of the boreal forest itself, usually in smaller herds than the tundra animals.



Looks can be deceiving. These reindeer, grazing peacefully in the middle of
town on the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, are actually wild animals.
Claire Eamer photo

We tend to think of reindeer as domestic animals, but that's not always the case. True, people in Scandinavia and Russia have been keeping domesticated reindeer for thousands of years. However, one of the world’s largest herds of wild Rangifer tarandus is the Taimyr reindeer herd, which lives on the Taimyr Peninsula in central Siberia and numbers many hundreds of thousands of animals.

The caribou of North America have never been domesticated, but not because they are genetically different from reindeer. The aboriginal peoples of North America simply never felt the need to domesticate caribou. Instead, they adapted their lifestyle to fit the seasonal wanderings of the wild herds.

Perhaps the oddest member of the Rangifer tarandus tribe is the Svalbard reindeer. Russell calls it the Shetland pony of the reindeer world. Svalbard is Norwegian territory, a small group of rocky islands about halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. Isolated by hundreds of kilometres of ocean from any other land, Svalbard is home to a distinct population of reindeer, small, with short legs, snubbed muzzles, and chubby, barrel-shaped bodies.


Caribou biologist Don Russell calls Svalbard reindeer the Shetland ponies
of the Rangifer world. Their short legs and chubby bodies serve them well
on the islands of the remote Svalbard archipelago.
Claire Eamer photo

Svalbard reindeer aren't designed for speed, but they don't need to be. The only large predators on Svalbard are polar bears, and they're rarely interested in reindeer. On the other hand, those chubby bodies are important. Svalbard is a tough place to be a reindeer.

In winter, Svalbard reindeer have to eat whatever they can find. Most other Rangifer eat lichens, which are available in winter under the snow. On Svalbard, however, there are few lichens. Svalbard reindeer eat the first green shoots of sedges emerging in the spring. Through the summer, they work their way through lush tundra plants, packing on as much fat as possible. The fat has to last them through the lean times of winter when they go on a crash diet, often losing almost half their autumn weight by spring.

Meanwhile, about those flying reindeer. They seem chubby enough, but science has remarkably little to say about them. Perhaps it's the shortage of confirmed sightings. Nevertheless, given their unusual reported characteristics (flying, occasional appearance of a glowing red nose), they clearly deserve more research.

If you want to know more about wild caribou and reindeer, explore the CARMA website.

To hear from the people who depend on caribou and reindeer -- in their own words -- watch some of the videos at Voices of the Caribou People. It's a great resource for teachers and students studying life in the Arctic.

About those seasonal reindeer.... Here's a site devoted to the history of Santa Claus and his flying Rangifer team.

And the one with the unusual nose? That'd be Rudolph, eh?

Finally, remember those reindeer on a mountain in Scotland? Here they are, the Cairngorm reindeer.