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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ruminant, more like.Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and yes, even Rudolph have evolved an excellent strategy to rest efficiently, a new study finds. Published today in the journal Current Biology, this paper by researchers in Switzerland and Norway gifts us a discovery about how rumination — the process of rechewing partially digested food called cud — rejuvenates reindeer. Like cows, deer, camels, and llamas, reindeer are ruminants. All ruminants are four-stomached herbivores who feed on rough plants, regurgitate the partially digested cud, then chew it again and swallow. But the new paper, which analyzed...

The directorate of agriculture in the kingdom considered that the Russian reindeer moss, eaten by the Norwegian deer, is now too expensive, and instead of paying for the damage caused in the Pasvik nature reserve, they preferred to destroy the northern beauties in the amount of 42 individuals. In the treasury of one of the richest countries in the world, 47 million crowns (approximately 420 million rubles) were not to be found to save the animals, settling the claims of the Russian side. Russian zoologists acted strictly within the framework of an agreement signed thirty years ago, which regulated the...

Norway's government on Thursday (Mar 2) apologised to indigenous Sami reindeer herders affected by wind farms that were declared illegal after they were built, following a week of protests by activists. The country's highest court unanimously ruled in October 2021 that the expropriation and operating permits issued for the construction of 151 turbines in the Fosen region of western Norway were invalid. The court found that the project violated the rights of Sami families to practise their culture of reindeer husbandry.

This is a video of a family of reindeer herders setting up their lodging for a short stay before they have to head out again. They are on the move every four days or so, and by now they got this down to a science, and everyone works together. These families are so far off the grid they live in Siberia. I'm offer 17 screen shots from the video for those who would rather not spend the 32 minutes watching the whole video, however, your missing a treat if you don't. I often read about preppers who are doing their...

Photographer Lev Fedoseyev filmed a reindeer herd stampeding in a massive spiral in northwest Russia The deer run in a ring when threatened, putting does and fawns in the center, to confuse predators This herd, in Murmansk, was spooked by a veterinarian trying to give them their anthrax vaccinations Reindeer can run 50 miles per hour and, in spring, are known to form 'super-herds' of up to 500,000

Reindeer in the Swedish arctic are facing food supply shortages and going hungry, thanks to climate change. “If we don’t find better areas for them where they can graze and find food, then the reindeers will starve to death,” Niila Inga said. His indigenous community herds about 8,000 reindeer year-round, moving them between traditional grazing grounds in the high mountains bordering Norway in the summer and the forests farther east in the winter, The Associated Press reported. The reindeer already have been pressured by the mining and forestry industry, and other developments that encroach on grazing land. Now, their food...

In the 1990s, the remains of six Neanderthals -- two adults, two adolescents and two children -- were found in a small cave at Baume Moula-Guercy in the Rhône valley in southern France. The bones bear many of the hallmarks of cannibalism: cut marks made by stone tools, complete dismemberment of the individuals, and finger bones that look as if they've been gnawed by Neanderthal teeth, rather than by other carnivores. Remains from other sites in Croatia, Spain and Belgium also show evidence of cannibalism. But in each case, there has been a lack of evidence to answer the question...

Vikings hunting reindeer in Norway were once confounded by "reindeer cyclones"; a threatened herd would literally run circles around the fierce hunters, making it nearly impossible to target a single animal. Filmmakers recently captured incredible aerial footage of one of these reindeer cyclones, which aired Feb. 13 on PBS in the documentary "Wild Way of the Vikings," a program about Vikings and the wilderness they inhabited around A.D. 1000. [Photos: Ancient Arrows from Reindeer Hunters Found in Norway] One of the documentary's most striking scenes shows a re-enactment of a Viking hunt interspersed with real footage of reindeer herds. Reindeer...

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

More than 100 reindeer have been fatally mowed down by freight trains in northern Norway in the past week in a pre-Christmas “bloodbath,” according to reports. One train killed 65 deer on the tracks on Saturday and another 41 died in the same gruesome fashion between Wednesday and Friday of last week during the animals’ winter migration. “I’m so angry that I’m dizzy,” Ole Henrik, the owner of the 65 dead reindeer, told NRK, a Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company.

An incredible video from northern Sweden has captured the moment a lonely reindeer met a cocky cat – but the latter decided it wasn't in the mood to play. Sylvia Hedenström filmed the encounter at her Burträsk summer house in August when the reindeer wandered into her garden and was met by her pet Spiffan. "I didn't believe it. I stood there and thought the cat doesn't understand what's going on, that there's a reindeer in front of it. Then she tried to scare it away and mark her territory," the cat’s owner laughed. "Spiffan doesn't like any other animals....

Climate change industry based on reduction of man-made CO2, the gas of plant life, is a very profitable ruse worth trillions of dollars for global elites “In God We Trust, all others bring data.” - Motto of the Apollo team Global warming is not going away. Vice President Al Gore’s infamous words, “The planet has a fever,” referring to global warming, has been met many times with the planet’s natural and cyclical climate change response of frigid temperatures, ice, and snow.

Think it would be cool to get your pizza delivered by an actual reindeer? You’re not alone. In fact, Domino’s recently tried to make this very thing happen in Japan. For the holiday season, the pizza chain announced that it would have reindeer pulling sleds with pizza deliveries on them. Then customers could track their pizzas by GPS just like with regular deliveries. However, the idea didn’t exactly work out. As it turns out, it’s much more difficult to train reindeer than those old Christmas stories make it out to be. Or maybe they only listen to Santa. Either way,...

He said reindeer tend to stay very close to each other in bad weather, which could explain how so many were killed at once.

Scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester have used a new technique, "Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry," or ZooMS, to identify more than 2,000 bone fragments recovered from Russia's Denisova Cave. ZooMS analyzes the collagen peptide sequences in bone, which can then be used to identify its species. Among the remains of mammoths, woolly rhino, wolf, and reindeer, the researchers found one Neanderthal bone. "When the ZooMS results showed that there was a human fingerprint among the bones I was extremely excited. ...The bone itself is not exceptional in any way and would otherwise be missed by...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special. For those remembering how they stared with wonder and awe at the jerky stop-motion animation and shivered with delicious fear at the perils faced by the plucky buck with the incandescent schnoz, the notion that this program occurred a half century ago would be a marvelous testament to the enduring power of the show’s appeal . . . if it didn’t make you feel so damned old. If it does, that is. For young kids today it’s a cultural artifact from a time so remote it...

It took me a second...

Much higher levels of radioactivity than normal have been found among Norway's grazing animals, especially its reindeer population, a study revealed on Monday. Almost 30 years after the nuclear plant explosion in Chernobyl, this autumn, more radioactivity has been measured in Norwegian grazing animals than has been noted in many years. Lavrans Skuterud, a scientist at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (Statens strålevern), said: “This year is extreme.” In September, 8200 becquerel per kilo of the radioactive substance Caesium-137 was measured in reindeer from Våga reinlag AS, in Jotunheimen, central Norway. In comparison, the highest amount at the same place...

A giant herd of 2,000 reindeer has forced Norway's National Road Authority to shut off a major road between Oslo and Bergen to prevent them being killed by passing cars. The herd massed together on Hardangervidda, the mountain plateau in central Norway, and on Tuesday afternoon had moved within three kilometres of the country's Highway 7. "This is probably the first time the road has been closed for such reasons," the NPRA's local section head Lars Øyre said in a press statement. "Several times, the animals have got close to the road, and we've been on the point of pressing...

i i In 1939, Montgomery Ward in Chicago asked one of its admen to write a story for the department store's own children's book. Rauner Special Collections Library/Dartmouth College In 1939, Montgomery Ward in Chicago asked one of its admen to write a story for the department store's own children's book.Rauner Special Collections Library/Dartmouth College i i Author Robert May considered other names before settling on Rudolph. Imagine: We could be singing instead about the very shiny nose on Reginald, Rollo or Romeo. Courtesy of Rauner Special Collections Library/Dartmouth College Author Robert May considered other names before settling on...