Waldren

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Waldren
Forest reindeer at Helsinki Zoo

Forest reindeer at Helsinki Zoo

Systematics
without rank: Forehead weapon bearer (Pecora)
Family : Deer (Cervidae)
Subfamily : Deer (Capreolinae)
Genre : Rangifer
Type : Reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus )
Subspecies : Waldren
Scientific name
Rangifer tarandus fennicus
( Lönnberg , 1909)

The wood reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus fennicus ) is a subspecies of the reindeer native to Finland and Karelia, Russia.

features

Of the still wild on the Scandinavian peninsula and domesticated individuals of the nominate form of reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus tarandus ), the Porcupine Caribou differs by one cm to an average of about 15 higher Height and much longer legs. These are interpreted as an evolutionary adaptation to the snow conditions in the habitat of the wood reindeer; in the taiga , the snow cover is higher and softer in winter than in the treeless tundra. The wood reindeer can move through snow depths of up to 70 cm and look for food. The head body length is 150 to 210 cm, the shoulder height about 85 to 120 cm. Male specimens can weigh 180 to 200 kg, females from 120 to 140 kg. Furthermore, the skull of the wood reindeer is longer and narrower than that of the nominate form, and in comparison the antlers of the wood reindeer extend less to the side. The fur of the wood reindeer is darker than that of the tundra and its domesticated form. The neck is white.

Way of life

Forest reindeer have much larger habitats than domesticated reindeer, but live in smaller herds. During the summer months the group size averages 1.6 to 2 individuals; male and female forest reindeer live separately from each other in summer from the birth of the calves. During the heat season from September to October, forest reindeer stay in herds of 10 to 40 animals. After that, they migrate to their winter pastures - mostly dry pine heath forests with trees, heather and Cladina lichens - where they gather in large groups of hundreds of reindeer. In early April, female forest reindeer migrate to the areas where they give birth to their calves. The birth takes place from the first of May to the beginning of June, after eight months of pregnancy. Twin births are rare, most often it is just one calf. Preferred summer pastures are moors surrounded by a thick spruce forest. The male forest reindeer stay on the winter pastures all year round.

In winter, forest reindeer feed mainly on lichens. They eat around 20 different species of lichen, but prefer Cladina and Cetraria species. With their sense of smell, they can find and dig up lichens in a snow depth of up to 72 cm. If lichen is scarce, trees, sedges and other plants with lower nutritional value are eaten. If there is a lack of ground lichens, the winter food can consist of hanging lichens, for example Alectoria and Bryoria species, withered reeds and branches of deciduous trees. During the growing season , their diet is more varied and does not differ significantly from that of domesticated reindeer: among other things, scabbard cottongrass , feverish clover and marsh blood-eye , wire-smith , sedges and leaves. Lichen is more likely to be eaten by male than female forest reindeer in summer. Mushrooms are a sought-after food in late summer and autumn.

Delimitation of the subspecies

After the end of the Vistula Ice Age around 9,000 years ago, Fennoscandinavia was initially settled by reindeer populations from Central Europe, from which today's nominate form of reindeer developed. The wood reindeer, on the other hand, probably only immigrated from Siberia around 7,000 years ago and spread steadily northwards with the post-glacial expansion of its habitat, the boreal spruce forests. Older publications still assumed a Pleistocene subspecies Rangifer tarandus constantini as the ancestor of the wood reindeer. However, phylogenetic analyzes of mitochondrial DNA from various ren populations suggest that both R. t. tarandus like R. t. fennicus diphyletically from two remaining Ice Age populations, one Eurasian and one European, and the morphological differences of the recent subspecies are the result of Holocene evolution. Furthermore, craniometric findings suggest that more recently, semidomesticated cultivated forms of Rangifer tarandus tarandus have crossed into the northern populations of the wood reindeer, especially on the border between the Kola peninsula and White Karelia. In order to prevent further intermingling of the wood reindeer population with cultivated vines, a fence was built in Kainuu over a length of around 83 km, which separates the grazing areas of the two subspecies.

distribution

In the past, the wood reindeer occurred in large parts of north-eastern Europe, until the 16th century in parts of Poland and until the middle of the 19th century in Sweden; the last Swedish specimens were shot in the 1870s. By the time the hunting of wild reindeer was restricted in Sweden in 1879, both subspecies were as good as extinct. In all of Finland, with the exception of the southern coastal plain, it was very numerous in the 18th century, but was then eradicated by hunting. Originally the wood reindeer was the most important meat supplier for the inhabitants of Northern Finland. The rearing of semi-domesticated reindeer, previously only practiced on a larger scale in northwestern Lapland , only spread to the rest of northern Finland in the course of the extinction of the forest reindeer. When it was placed under protection in 1913, the wood reindeer was already extinct in Finland. Today's populations descend from animals that did not immigrate from Russia until the 1940s. Today there are two vital populations again, in the northeastern Finnish town of Kainuu (around 1,000 animals in 2006) and in the remote forests of Suomenselkä in western Finland (around 1,400 animals). There is also a population of only one to two dozen heads near Lieksa in North Karelia . The population in the Russian part of Karelia was estimated at 3,000 individuals in 2002, but is falling due to poaching. Since 1996 the wood reindeer can be hunted again in Finland. It is listed as “ Near Threatened ” on the 2010 Finnish Red List . An EU- funded project called WildForestReindeerLIFE aims to improve the conservation status of the forest reindeer by 2023, including through reintroduction in the Lauhanvuori and Seitseminen national parks .

In Sweden, the reintroduction of the forest reindeer is being discussed and advocated by the Swedish Hunters Association ( Svenska Jägareförbundet ), while reindeer keepers fear that the subspecies will be mixed up and the semi-domesticated reindeer will be disturbed. According to Stig-Olof Holm, the ecological niche of lichen as food is now unused in large parts of Sweden (outside of today's reindeer herding area); the wood reindeer would not compete for food with elk, fallow deer, red deer and roe deer, but could reduce conflicts between humans and wolves as additional prey. Forest reindeer are kept in several Swedish zoos; Nordens Ark is responsible for the studbook .

Web links

Commons : Rangifer tarandus fennicus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ T. Helle: Variations in Body Measurements of Wild and Semidomestic Reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) in Fennoscandia. In: Annales-Zoologici-Fennici. 1980; 17 (4). Pp. 275-284.
  2. ↑ Suomen metsäpeura-kannan hoitosuunnitelma ( Memento of December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), p. 14.
  3. ↑ Tuija Rankama: On the early history of the wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L.) in Finland. In: Boreas. 2001; 30 (2). Pp. 131-147.
  4. ↑ J. Lepiksaar: The Holocene history of theriofauna in Fennoscandia and Baltic countries. In: Striae. 24.
  5. ↑ Constantine C. Flerov: A New Paleolithic Reindeer from Siberia. In: Journal of Mammalogy . 15: 3, August 1934. p. 239, vol. 15, no. 3 (Aug. 1934), pp. 239-240; here as a separate species R. constantini .
  6. ↑ E. Pulliainen et al.: Wild Forest Reindeer. Rangifer tarandus fennicus Lonnb. Its Historical and Recent Occurrence and Distribution in Finland and the Karelian ASSR with Special Reference to the Development and Movements of the Kuhmo-Kammenojeozero USSR Subpopulation. Aquilo-Ser-Zoologica 23rd 1985.
  7. ↑ O. Flagstad and KH Rød: Refugial origins of reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus L. ) inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences. In: evolution. 57, 2003. pp. 658-670.
  8. ↑ Vladimir Varkovsky et al .: On the taxonomy and geographical variation of the European reindeer with special reference to the wild forest reindeer, R. t. fennicus Lonnberg 1909. In: Aquilo-Ser-Zoologica. 29, 1996. pp. 3-23.
  9. ^ Einar Lönnberg: Taxonomic Notes about Palearctic Reindeer. In: Arkiv för Zoologi. Volume 6, No. 4 (1910), p. 13 (English). Accessible online .
  10. ↑ Thor Draiby: Possibilities for, and attitudes towards, a potential reintroduction of wild forest reindeer Rangifer tarandus fennicus Lönn. to parts of Sweden (Swedish with English summary), pp. 5–7.
  11. ↑ Martti Montonen: Metsäpeura ja Suomen kulttuurihistoria. In: Suomen luonto. 6. 1972.
  12. ↑ Matti Enbuske: Lapin asuttamisen historia. In: Ilmo Massa, Hanna Snellman (eds.): Lappi - Maa, kansat, kulttuurit. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Helsinki 2003. p. 54.
  13. ↑ Management Plan for the Wild Forest Reindeer Population in Finland ( Memento of December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), pp. 21–26 (English); Suomen metsäpeura-kannan hoitosuunnitelma ( Memento of December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), pp. 20-25 (Finnish).
  14. ↑ Erik Hansson: Skogsren född i finsk national park - för första gången på 150 år , May 16, 2020 (Swedish).
  15. ↑ Ingrid Söderbergh: Vilda renar slipper dra tomtens släde , December 20, 2017 (Swedish).