Radio Script
2003

Not so home on the range: Reindeer herding in Alaska is a growing enterprise. If only herders could keep their charges from wandering off with nearby bands of wild caribou. (Courtesy University of Alaska Reindeer Research Program.)

Reindeer Wranglers
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INTRO: Cattle may be king on the grasslands of Montana and Wyoming, but out on the Alaska tundra, reindeer rule. As Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio, keeping reindeer home on the range is a daunting task for Alaska's reindeer wranglers.

STORY: Reindeer look a lot like their larger wild cousins, the caribou, but they've been domesticated for hundreds of years. In places like Alaska, raising reindeer is the far-north equivalent of cattle ranching.

Greg Finstad directs the Reindeer Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He says there's great potential for Alaska's reindeer industry.

FINSTAD: "The reindeer producers actually are very lucky. The market is already out there. There's a huge demand for reindeer meat. The reindeer producers, the reindeer herders, cannot produce enough meat to meet the demand."

Reindeer first came to Alaska in the late 1800s, brought in by missionaries after hunters depleted local caribou herds. It was thought then that reindeer could serve as the basis for a cash economy in the region. Today, some 20,000 reindeer roam across thousands of square miles of remote tundra wilderness. Native herders use helicopters and four-wheelers to round up reindeer that have spent the long Arctic summer foraging. Many are sent to slaughterhouses to be turned into steaks, chops and sausages. Alaska is the primary market at the moment, while interest in reindeer outside the state is growing steadily.

But Finstad says increasing the sale of reindeer meat has its own set of complications—the least of which is public acceptance of eating an animal many people see as a symbol of Christmas. An even bigger problem is that reindeer sometimes wander away with huge herds of migrating wild caribou that pass nearby. When that happens, there's not much the reindeer herders can do.

FINSTAD: "You get this tidal wave of caribou washing over the reindeer ranges. The reindeer get mixed in with the caribou. The caribou wander off, they migrate out of the area, and the reindeer go with them."

Finstad says Alaska's reindeer wranglers have lost thousands of reindeer in recent years to herds of wandering caribou. And he says herders face another challenge. With so few roads in Alaska, it's difficult and expensive to get reindeer meat to market. To address that problem, Finstad and others are working on adapting the animals to fenced-in ranges alongside existing roads.

Help this week comes from Earthwatch Radio at the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Program. This is Arctic Science Journeys Radio, a production of the Alaska Sea Grant Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. I'm Doug Schneider.

Thanks to the following individual for help preparing this script:

Greg Finstad, Program Manager
Reindeer Research Program
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Institute of Arctic Biology
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7200
Phone: 907-474-6055, 907-474-5449
Email: ffglf@uaf.edu

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Related websites

Reindeer Research Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Reindeer Range (EarthWatch Radio)

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