Reindeers dying in Britain because 'climate too warm'

Manager of Britain’s only free-range reindeer herd says animals not suited to life in captivity and in many cases they do not live to see another winter

By Anita Singh

6:00AM GMT 10 Dec 2014

Once upon a time, seeing Santa’s reindeer involved a trip to Lapland. Now they are present at Christmas events across Britain, but experts have warned that the animals are paying a heavy price.

Reindeer are not suited to life in captivity and in many cases they do not live to see another winter, according to the manager of Britain’s only free-range reindeer herd.

The climate, diet and living conditions are so different to their natural habitat that many reindeer waste away or develop stress-related illnesses.

Tilly Smith, who runs the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre in Inverness-shire, called on Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to halt reindeer imports.

“They are not coming from reindeer farms in Scandinavia, they are coming from areas of the wild, and Britain is not their natural habitat,” said Mrs Smith.

“Because they have fattened up and lived well in the summer before coming to Britain in November-time, they tend to survive through the winter. But when it comes to spring again they get thinner and thinner, and they can die.

“It is too warm here in summertime. Living on grass is a real no-no. They are used to living in a herd, eating different things at different times of year. And they need to move around - they can’t just stand sedentary in a pen all the time.”

She added: “Defra does not have a handle on where these reindeer go. Once they arrive into this country, they just vanish into the ether.

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Why Are Sea Stars Dying from New Jersey to Maine? Divers Asked to Report Large Groupings of Starfish

July 23, 2013 — When University of Rhode Island graduate student Caitlin DelSesto collected starfish in Narragansett Bay for an undergraduate research project in 2011, she was surprised to watch as the animals appeared to melt and die in her tank within a week. After bringing it to the attention of URI Professor Marta Gomez-Chiarri, she learned it was among the first observations of a new disease that is now affecting starfish -- also called sea stars -- from New Jersey to Maine.

Thanks to a grant from the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, the URI researchers are collaborating with scientists at Brown University and Roger Williams University to try to identify the cause of the disease.

"There was a big increase in sea star numbers about three or four years ago," said Gomez-Chiarri, "and often when you have a population explosion of any species you end up with a disease outbreak. When there's not enough food for them all it causes stress, and the density of animals leads to increased disease transmission.

"Now that the disease is in the environment, it may be hard to get the population back to normal," she added. "Diseases don't just completely disappear after a massive die-off."

Continued

World's Big Trees Are Dying: Alarming Increase in Death Rates Among Trees 100-300 Years Old

Dec. 6, 2012 — The largest living organisms on the planet, the big, old trees that harbour and sustain countless birds and other wildlife, are dying.

A report by three of the world's leading ecologists in today's issue of the journal Science warns of an alarming increase in deathrates among trees 100-300 years old in many of the world's forests, woodlands, savannahs, farming areas and even in cities.

"It's a worldwide problem and appears to be happening in most types of forest," says lead author Professor David Lindenmayer of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and Australian National University.

"Large old trees are critical in many natural and human-dominated environments. Studies of ecosystems around the world suggest populations of these trees are declining rapidly," he and colleagues Professor Bill Laurance of James Cook University, Australia, and Professor Jerry Franklin of Washington University, USA, say in their Science report.

"Research is urgently needed to identify the causes of rapid losses of large old trees and strategies for improved management. Without… policy changes, large old trees will diminish or disappear in many ecosystems, leading to losses of their associated biota and ecosystem functions."

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121206162519.htm