Rudolph and pals in peril as Arctic continues to warm
THE SUN had not set for days and a fug of biting insects turned the air as nasty as the gluey morass under foot. Midsummer in the Arctic is a mishmash of buzzing wings and syrupy bird song. A melting permafrost brings groundhugging plants to life and with it come the bugs. Bears forage and elk mooch. Birdwatchers flock to see Siberian waifs drawn to the westerly extremes of the vast taiga forest that stretches to the Pacific. Another creature of the snowy wilderness has a knack of materialising in the most surprising of circumstances.
A rubbish dump on the outside of some unpronounceable Finnish town seemed a perfect spot to watch elusive shorebirds that pass fleetingly through British wetlands in spring and autumn. Spotted redshanks, wood sandpipers and red-necked phalaropes were on show in their summer finery when a fuzzy-antlered creature emerged out from the cloud of midges.
We squared up eye-to-eye. I pondered a photograph, the obdurate reindeer wanted supper and did not want me in the way. The antlers looked fearsome, the glint in his eyes was mean. I went for my camera and the reindeer took off so fast I thought he would fly. Flying reindeer? We all know the legend but academics seem to love dispelling myths about an animal whose association with Christmas has made it one of the best known yet least understood creatures.
American writer Robert L May enshrined reindeer into festive folklore with his 1939 tale about a bullied reindeer called Rudolph who comes to the rescue of Santa’s sleigh run by guiding the way with his red nose. Gene Autry’s song a decade later was a chart hit and a legend was born.
Red-nosed reindeer, I am afraid, are an impossibility. The animals cannot detect the colour because of the optical structure of their eyes. Like dogs, they cannot see red, orange or green. Why have a red nose, when your herd cannot see it? There’s another setback for the image of Rudolph with his splendid antlers.
Research shows how male reindeer have invariably lost their antlers by Christmas. Only female reindeer still have full sets post-rutting season, an adaptation that helps them use the prongs to scrabble below the snow for lichen. Hence, a splendidly turned out reindeer leading Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen must really be a girl.
For all the myths, there’s one stark reality about this species and its North American counterpart, the caribou. They are in dire peril. Since the mid-1990s, numbers of migratory Arctic and subarctic herds have plunged by 56 per cent from an estimated 4.7 million to 2.1 million, a report from the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns.
Reindeer face many challenges in their harsh habitats. Disease, parasites, predation and hunting take their toll but according to the NOAA’s latest Arctic Report Card, a warming climate is increasing the frequency of droughts, impacting on the quality of their forage while also worsening the threats from those perishing flies, worms and disease outbreaks.
We can only wish Rudolph and clan not only a Merry Christmas but, hopefully, many, many happy new years...
‘Reindeer herds have plunged by 56 per cent since the mid 1990s’