Holiday Special: Reindeer

Alex Re

Hello, welcome to on wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Re. On this podcast, we bring the wild to you, we take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every week. And I guarantee you, you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. Because we're nearing the holiday season. This is a special winter episode. So you're gonna want to bundle up because we're heading to the tundra to talk about reindeer.

So there are nine subspecies of reindeer. And they can be found in parts of North America, Russia, or Europe, and usually where it's really cold. And some of you may also know them as caribou. They're actually the same animal. They're just called different things in different places. And some of their closest relatives are the elk and the moose. And one noticeable similarity that all these animals have in common is how big they are. Male reindeer can weigh over 500 pounds, and grow up to seven feet tall. The first thing you'll probably notice about them is they're huge antlers. They're the largest antlers compared to their body size in the deer family. And the antlers themselves can be around four feet long. And they're also the only deer species where both males and females have antlers. And we're going to dive deeper into why that is later on in the podcast. So because they usually live in cold wooded areas, reindeer have some serious predators to worry about one of the most common and dangerous predators that they have to face our wolf. Luckily, reindeer can reach speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, which is much faster than wolves who can only get up to a little under 40 miles per hour. And larger animals usually live a little bit longer so they can live for up to 15 years. They're also very acclimated to being in extremely cold temperatures as pretty much every part of their body. Even their hooves and their nose are covered in fur. They actually have two layers of fur, and the underneath layer traps warm air to keep them nice and toasty. And the fur on their hooves helps them get better traction when they're walking and running in the snow. And the fur on their nose along with a large amount of blood vessels warms the air that they breathe in so that it's not too cold for their lungs. That just puts Rudolph's nose to shame. reindeer are herbivores, so they only eat vegetation. And their favorite foods are moss, shrubs, and lichens. lichens are kind of like a combination of algae and fungi. And if you've ever seen green crusty stuff on a tree, it's most likely a lichen. But they usually eat moss and shrubs when it's warmer and lichens when it's cold outside because lichens are able to withstand the extreme cold without needing a lot of sunlight. Because the ground where they live is usually covered in snow. reindeer need a really good sense of smell to find their next meal. And their sense of smell is so strong that they oftentimes use smell to identify each other. For example, a mother will sniff her baby's tail to make sure it's hers. After Rangers found a good spot for food, they use a technique called cratering, which is basically just digging a hole in the ground using their hooves in order to expose the vegetation. What's really interesting is that their homes become harder than usual during the winter, so that they can really break through the snow. Because they're so big reindeer need to eat a lot of food. They can eat around 20 pounds of food every day. That's like 40 boxes of pasta. Alright, we're gonna take our first break. And when we get back, I'm going to start talking about reindeer behaviors. Okay, who thinks they can get the answer to this question. lemurs are animals found only in which country? A Madagascar? B, India, sea cannon Canada, or de Brazil? The answer is a Madagascar.

Alright, we're back. And we were talking about how reindeer love their food. Well, they also like to Greece for their food with their group called a herd. And these herds can vary in size. They can be in a small group, but their herds can have some crazy numbers. The largest reindeer herd could have around 1 million members that's larger than the entire population of Delaware. This herd is really beneficial for them when they're avoiding predators because they're safety in numbers. A pack of wolves may be able to ambush a single reindeer and take it down. But with large herds. It's not That easy. Also, as long as you're faster than your friends, you probably won't be the one getting eaten. Because there are so many individuals, food can get scarce, which is why they sometimes have to migrate to different locations. In Canada, they've been known to travel across large ice sheets that are covering the water going to different islands in order to find food. They've been known to travel as far as 1000 miles to find their food. Many scientists believe that the herds that reindeer form showed that they're really socially intelligent. When they migrate, the adults are passing down the information about where to go for the next generation. There's also evidence to suggest that the way that these herds interact with each other has an effect on where they go during these migrations. All that traveling must be pretty tiring, so when do they get the chance to sleep? their sleep schedule is pretty interesting because they usually live in the polar regions, where in the winter, there's almost no sunlight. And in the summer, there's almost no darkness. Most mammals have a circadian rhythm, which is like your body's internal clock telling you when you need to go to sleep and when you need to be awake. But research has found that reindeer don't have a circadian rhythm, which could possibly be due to this weird difference in light and darkness during the winter and summer months. Instead, they really just take a nap after they're finished eating. And wouldn't we all like to live like this. So we already know that reindeer have a great sense of smell. But what's even more amazing is their vision. reindeer are able to see an ultraviolet light, making them the only mammals that are able to do this. This is really helpful for them when they're looking for food in their environment. As we talked about before, it can be extremely dark for long periods of time in the polar regions where they live, which can make it much harder for them to see where food is. Well, scientists have discovered that the plants that reindeer eat are actually more visible under ultraviolet light. And their ultraviolet vision also makes it easier to see predators from much further away. downed power lines also emit a lot of ultraviolet light that we can't see. And animals that can see an ultraviolet light like reindeer have been known to avoid these power lines. Earlier in the episode, I was talking about those huge antlers that reindeer have. Well at certain points of the year, they don't have them. Males and females lose and grow back their antlers at different times. Males lose their antlers from November until the spring and females keep their antlers throughout the winter. And a lot of the time their antlers are covered in something called velvet, which is basically a bunch of skin tissue with fur and lots of blood vessels. That's what makes their antlers look furry. Males shed this velvet when mating season comes around because they use their antlers to duel with other males to fight for mates. These fights are extremely dangerous for the reindeer and could even result in death. But they've been known to practice they're fighting with other males that they're not competing against. This is called sparring, and it's a lot less dangerous. Some studies show that males with smaller antlers usually initiate the sparring matches in order to figure out how well they can actually fight compared to other males. And during mating season. Males barely eat anything. So they really like to fatten up in preparation for this. Usually, males will chase females around in order to make them join his group. And he likes to gather as many females into his group as he can so that he can mate with all of them. When one male mates with multiple females, it's called polygyny, and male reindeer spend over a month just chasing away other males from their group and mating with females. Luckily for the females, they grow their antlers back more quickly than the males, meaning that they can chase the males away from their food supply, leaving them to fend for themselves. Females give birth to only one calf every year, and their gestation period is a little over 200 days. The calves are only 10 pounds when they're born. But in order to keep up with the herd, they have to develop quickly. They can stand within the first half hour of birth and are eating vegetation within the first three weeks. Okay, we're going to take our last little break and when we get back I'm going to talk about why reindeer are important to the ecosystems that they live in.

If you want more information about reindeer, or you just want to suggest a new animal for me to talk about. You can email onwildlife.podcast@gmail.com You can also visit our website at www.onwildlife.org Okay, we're back aside from Just being a food source for some of the ecosystems top predators, reindeer play a pivotal role in their environment. They are an important part of something called nutrient cycling, which is basically exchanging nutrients throughout the soil. nutrient cycling is really important for the growth of plants. Remember how I was talking about how reindeer are grazing animals? Well, this is why they're so important in nutrient cycling. When they graze and eventually poop out their food, they're cycling nutrients like nitrogen throughout the soil and helping more plants grow. They also change the temperature of the soil in really cold environments, which can actually help the growth of plants as well. Not only that, but they also provide food for people who live in the same environment, especially indigenous people. Unfortunately, a lot of reindeer populations are on the decline. A large reason for that being the changing climate in the ecosystems that they live in. temperatures are rising, which has a really detrimental effect on the reindeer. Earlier I was talking about how reindeer migrate to different locations to graze a lot of the time having to travel across ice sheets in order to get to these locations. As the temperature rises, those ice sheets become smaller and smaller, and the reindeer end up not being able to cross them. This means that they have to overgraze in certain areas, which is harmful to the plants and depletes their food source. And eventually they'll run out of food because they have nowhere else to go once everything has been depleted. Not only that, but the warmer temperatures caused it to rain instead of snow, meaning that there's a thick layer of ice that's covering the snow. This makes it harder for the Ranger to use their hooves to break through to find food. Climate change has also caused parasitic insects to be out earlier in the season, which gives the reindeer less time to graze without being bothered. Another issue that they're facing is also caused by humans. The places where reindeer live are also large oil mining areas. People are destroying their habitats to mined for oil and other minerals, which is causing their populations to decline. These animals are critical to their ecosystem and to indigenous people who live there, which is why it's so important that we fight for their conservation. There are some great organizations that are currently helping reindeer and the places that they live. For example, The Defenders of Wildlife, our Arctic Refuge, and the Canadian parks and Wilderness Society. Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of the reindeer. You can find the sources that we use for this podcast and links to organizations that we reference@www.on wildlife.org Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday for another awesome episode. And that's on wildlife.

Jess Avellino

You've been listening to On Wildlife with Alex Re brought to you every Wednesday.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai