REINDEER

                                                                                         

ARCTIC EXPRESS

The famous reindeer which pulls Father Christmas' sledge on Christmas Eve comes all the way from Lapland.

The winter coat is long and has a soft, dense under-fur which keeps them warm in the long winter with icy temperatures. The top layer with longer hair is hollow and air-filled. Nature also provided them with broad cloven hooves to prevent them sinking too deep into the snow. Their hooves change in the summer and become sponge-like because the ground is soft and wet. In the winter their pads shrink and tighten to expose the rim of the hoof. This stops them from slipping and helps to scrape the snow to find lichens.

Reindeer are ruminants and have a four-chamber stomach. Their diet in winter is lichens and in summer leaves from willows and birches, sedges and grasses.

Reindeer noses have nasal turbinate bones to increase the surface area within their nostril. Air coming in is heated by the body heat and it goes into the lungs. The water condense is used to moisten dry air coming in and it is assumed that it is absorbed into the blood stream via mucous membranes.

The bulls and cows have the beautiful curved, branched antlers. They are the only female deer to have them. Matured bulls shed their antlers after their rut in September and October. The cows do not shed their antlers. In the winter they use them for scraping away the snow and to feed on lichens. Their babies, named calves, are born in May and June.

In 1952 a small herd from Lapland was re-introduced in Scotland. The reindeer returned after thousands of years to Scotland. They are only to be found in The Cairngorm mountains near Aviemore in the Highlands and are the only free roaming herd. They are very tame and friendly. There is a visitor centre were you can come and see them.

CAIRNGORM HERD

The bulls measure a height of 48 in (120cm) at shoulder and cows 36 in (90cm).

Their grey-brown coat is paler in winter.

MIGRATION

Reindeer walk up to 5,000 km which is the furthest of any terrestrial mammal. They travel 19 to 55 km a day.

During the spring migration begins and smaller herds being built up into larger herds of 50,000 to 500,000. In the autumn migration they break-up into smaller groups and the mating season starts. In the winter they stay in forests to find their lichens. In the spring they travel to their calving grounds.

Reindeer swim easily and quickly, from 6.5 km to 10 km. They swim across large lakes and broad rivers.

MOOSE AND REINDEER THE TRAFFICE JAM IN FINNLAND WHICH CAUSES MANY ACCIDENTS

PREDATORS

Golden Eagles, Wolverines, Brown Bears, Polar Bears, Gray Wolves, blood-sucking insects, black flies and mosquitoes.

In the Ice Ages - Dire Wolves, Cave Lions, American Lions, Short-faced Bears, Cave hyenas, Smilodons, Jaguars and Cougars.

HABITATS

Reindeers were widespread and numerous in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia and northern China.

In Canada, Alaska (USA) and from Washington to Maine are their main territories. It was still to be found in Idaho in the 19th century and they Iive natural in Sakhalin, Greenland.

In the late Pleistocene reindeer were in Nevada, Tennessee, (USA) and in Spain, Europe. They vanished from most parts but are still in Norway, Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada in large numbers.

DEER

FAWN FIRST STEPS

The deer family is one of the most widely spread animals from  Europe, North Africa, Asia to the North and South American continents. They also had been introduced to Australia and New Zealand. There are 36 species.Only deer grow antlers which is a bony structure on the head. Every year they shed them and then grow them afresh with covered velvet. Eventually this dries and they rub it off. During the mating season, also called rut, the male use it to fight off his opponent.  It can happened that Red deer with their enormous antlers can get themselves so entangled that they can't come apart anymore and sadly they both die of starvation.

Mostly the male is called a buck and the female a doe while the young one is a fawn. The exception is the red deer where the male is called a stag or hart. The reindeer, caribou, elk and moose; the male is called a bull, the female a cow and the young one a calf.

Deer usually live in big herds and move from place to place in search of food. Their diet is grass, bark, buds, shoots and leaves of bushes and trees.

The two most wide spread deer in Europe is the fallow deer which is 79-91cm high at the shoulder. The handsome looking red deer measures 125cm tall.

FALLOW DEER

Fallow deer live wild in southern Europe, Turkey and north-western Africa.  In Europe they live in parks.  Red deer are living in the wild throughout most of Europe, north-western Africa and Iran. In Northwest Africa they are called Barbary stags.

REINDEER

The reindeer, which are part of the family, are in Lapland the most important animal. Their warm, hairy coat is on top of a thick layer of fat. These two things help them to survive the harsh environment of the Arctic. Their large feet are act like a snowshoe and with the sharp edge of their hoof they can cut the ice like skates.  They supply milk, hides and meat to the people living there

ELK

The European elk is the largest of all deer. It measures 2m high. They live in broad-leaved woodlands, marshes and peat bogs and are to be found in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Siberia. It is also a closed relative to the American moose.

BARASINGHA

The Asian deer is the large barasingha or swamp deer of India. They are even larger than the sambar which weighs up to 320kg and lives in India, Sri Lanka, South-East Asia, China and the Philippines. The chital or axis deer is the most beautiful one and lives in India and Sri Lanka. It has white spots on a reddish-brown coat. The herd can be up to a 100 strong and they move all the time in search of food.

MUNTJAC

In contrast is the tiny Indian muntjac which is not taller than 50cm. It is also called the barking deer because it has a dog-like bark. The horns are small but it can defend itself with its sharp pair of tusks. The Chinese water deer is of the same size.

PUDU - THE SMALLEST DEER

The southern pudu is one of the few species of South American deer. It lives only in the extreme south of Chile and Argentina.

PERE DAVID'S DEER

The Pere David's deer is a very rare breed. It was named after a missionary priest who saw it for the first -time in 1900.  It became extinct in China.  Luckily a herd was kept in Woburn by the Duke of Bedford in England. The herd bred so well that they supply zoos. This deer would not have been around if it was not for conservation and it is a great success story.

ROEBUCK

Roebucks have small antlers with knotty protuberances at the base. It also has only three points and it is typical of the species. The family of the Roe deer is the American deer even so they are extinct in America.

Deer are necessary in the woodlands because they keep the saplings (young trees) down otherwise the forests would be overgrown. However, if they grow to a great number they achieve the opposite effect and almost ruin a forest.  A forester does a great job to keep the number at a correct level. 

They are shy and it is sheer luck if you can see one. There sharp hearing and smell alarms them of danger well ahead. The communication ranges from little bleats to loud bellows, especially during the mating season. They are also migrating animals because of their search of food and in winter travel a long distance.

Their social habits vary from species to species and it also depends on the availability of food. When food is thinly scattered they live in small groups. The deer which live in open grassland have much larger groups. In most groups the male and female live in separate groups until the mating season. The male group also has one hierarchy which is the largest and strongest,

They mostly breed in the autumn and the male is very aggressive, vigorously defending its mate or a group of females or his territory from other males. The gestation period varies between species and is from 25 to 40 weeks. Usually a single calf is born and the female hides it very well in a thicket and only goes there to suckle the baby. It will join the mother and the herd, when it is strong enough. It will be still suckling during that time for several months