Norwegian authorities reported more than a dozen unexplained reindeer deaths in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic, considered “highly unusual” for the summer season.<\/p>\n
During an annual count, 13 recently deceased reindeer – 11 females and two males – have so far been found in two Svalbard valleys located a little over a 1,000km from the North Pole, the local governor’s office announced.<\/p>\n
“It is very unusual for females of breeding age and adult males to die during the summer. That’s why we want to monitor this development closely,” it said.<\/p>\n
The causes of death are not yet known, and authorities have called on the public to report any new carcass finds.<\/p>\n
The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) told journalists it had “no clear indication nor any specific hypothesis” to explain the unusual summer deaths.<\/p>\n
“In winter, it is mainly the youngest and oldest individuals that die,” said researcher Vebjorn Veiberg.<\/p>\n
“The animals found dead this summer are, on the contrary, in the most vigorous and productive period of their lives,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Veterinary specialists are naturally looking for an explanation related to disease. However, it seems unlikely that a disease would primarily affect the most robust animals.”<\/p>\n
Svalbard, roughly twice the size of Belgium, has a population of around 22,000 reindeer – about seven times more than the number of people.<\/p>\n
They are significantly smaller in size than the mainland reindeer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norwegian authorities reported more than a dozen unexplained reindeer deaths in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic, considered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-585339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}