Sval­bard reinde­er is doing well

The Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te coun­ted 1374 Sval­bard reinde­er in the Advent­da­len around Lon­gye­ar­by­en this year. Many cal­ves were obser­ved and only a few dead reinde­er found. This is a trend that has been obser­ved for years: The reinde­er popu­la­ti­on has been gro­wing slight­ly in this regi­on for years.

The reinde­er have been coun­ted sin­ce 1979 on Spits­ber­gen by the Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te and the Sys­sel­man­nen – the Gover­nor of Spits­ber­gen. At that time only 457 reinde­er were coun­ted in Advent­da­len. It is esti­ma­ted that a total of 10.000 to 11.000 reinde­er live on Spits­ber­gen.

Cli­ma­te chan­ge has variu­os effects

Up to now, it has been assu­med that reinde­er suf­fer from the incre­asing rain. In win­ter, the rain forms a lay­er of ice on the ground and the reinde­er have more dif­fi­cul­ties approa­ching the lichens and gras­ses. Hig­her tem­pe­ra­tures in the autumn seem to com­pen­sa­te for the dete­rio­ra­ti­on in the living con­di­ti­ons for reinde­er. Last year, high tem­pe­ra­tures in Octo­ber and Novem­ber made it pos­si­ble for the reinde­er to build fat reser­ves so they could sur­vi­ve the cold win­ter.

The situa­ti­on is a bit dif­fe­rent for reinde­er north of Spits­ber­gen: on the Brøg­ger­hal­vøya peninsula/ Kongsfjor­den, the stock remains sta­ble. Here, the fjords have remain­ed free of ice in recent years, so that the Reinde­er can hard­ly migra­te to avo­id bad fee­ding con­di­ti­ons.
Glo­bal warm­ing could the­r­e­fo­re have dif­fe­rent effects in the dif­fe­rent cli­ma­te zones on Spits­ber­gen.

Less dead reinde­er in the Advent­da­len could mean bad news for ano­ther spe­ci­es: The polar fox feeds from reinde­er car­cas­ses. Less dead reinde­er means, he must switch to other food sources.

More artic­les about the Sval­bard reinde­er

Source: Nord­lys, Sval­bard­pos­ten

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