High Mortality Rates Among Coastal Reindeer on Svalbard This Year

The reindeer researchers have never before registered such low body weights on the reindeer around Ny-Ålesund as this year. Now, GPs transmitters show that many of the animals are dying.

For the tenth year in a row, the Norwegian Polar Institute has carried out research trapping of live reindeer on Brøggerhalvøya, Kaffiøyra, and Sarsøyra near Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard. In April, the field team handled, marked, and weighed 105 reindeer on these three isolated peninsulas. In addition, around 50 juveniles and adults are marked with GPS senders, reports the Polar Institute.

The low body weight makes the mortality rate high among both adults and calves. This testifies to a bad winter and rough conditions for the coastal reindeer in the west of Spitsbergen.

"We likely have to go back to the extreme winter and the population crash on Brøggerhalvøya in the winter of 1993/1994 to see anything remotely similar to this year," says reindeer researcher Åshild Ønvik Pedersen of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

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