Sunday 21 December 2014

Will Reindeer Popularity Help Protect Their Wild Kin? (Op-Ed)

Justina Ray, Wildlife Conservation Society Canada | December 18, 2014 01:02pm ET

Justina Ray, a wildlife biologist, isexecutive director and senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Reindeer are an enduring and beloved Christmas icon. However, Dasher and Dancer only slightly resemble their wild cousins — strong and graceful caribou. If you let your imagination run wild, you might be forgiven for thinking that reindeer — or caribou, as they're called in North America — seem to fly as they run across frozen lakes.

The holiday season offers one of the few opportunities for people to make a quick connection between the celebrated reindeer of song and story, and their real-world equivalent in the wild. As a conservation biologist, I have had the special privilege of witnessing their movements across boreal forest expanses during my winter survey research.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

ShareThis