Blog: Reindeer migration (by boat!) in Arctic Norway (VIDEO)
Norway’s public broadcaster NRK has a spectacular timelapse video up on their website showing reindeer migrating to an Arctic island…. on a boat!
The article is in Norwegian, but from what I can gather (thanks to Google Translate) freelance photographer Jan R. Olsen took the photographs on the island of Kågen in Troms county in Norway’s Arctic.
But why by boat?
According to the owner of the reindeer, the animals were tired which is why they started barging them to the island.
If any of our Norwegian site vistors have more information on the video, feel free to add it in the comments section below.
And now, see the video here for yourself:
Reinflytting from Jan R Olsen on Vimeo.
Write to Eilís Quinn at eilis.quinn(at)cbc.ca
I read an article today on Finnish YLE (http://yle.fi/uutiset/norjassa_kuoli_100_000_poroa_viime_vuonna/7235599) that is based on another NRK article (http://www.nrk.no/nordnytt/ingen-far-bukt-med-reindoden-1.11701945), which may explain it – or not. To summarize, very shortly, reindeer in Norway (mainly in Finnmark county?) are getting too weak because of malnutrition, and therefore need motorized help in their annual migration. In Finland, herders have been feeding their reindeer extra food because their grazing areas are over-grazed. There is a fear that the extra food may cause the quality of the reindeer meet change too much. In Norway, on the other hand, herders do not feed any extra to their reindeer, as they keep accusing the loss (over 100 000 died last year alone) on predators, while researchers keep telling them that their reindeer die of hunger much more than because of predators.