Reindeer numbers could fall by 80% by end of century, scientists warn

Reindeer herds across the Arctic are projected to shrink dramatically in the coming decades, with wild North American populations of caribou – as reindeer are called in North America - facing the gravest danger from rising temperatures, researchers have warned, according to CBS News.

The international study, led by the University of Adelaide in Australia and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, found that global reindeer numbers have already fallen by nearly two-thirds over the past thirty years, a decline linked to climate change.

There are currently around 9mn reindeer worldwide, including domesticated animals, according to the World Population Review, the broadcast network reports. The organisation estimates that North America’s wild herds number roughly 3.5mn, mainly in Alaska and Canada.

Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and greater investment in wildlife protection, North American caribou could see their populations drop by as much as 80% by 2100, warned Associate Professor Damien Fordham, deputy director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide, in a statement.

The team’s findings are based on analysis of how reindeer populations responded to historical climate shifts. Lead researcher Elisabetta Canteri said, in a statement: “Using fossils, ancient DNA and computer models, we reconstructed changes in the abundance and distribution of reindeer over the past 21,000 years at resolutions never done before, and we directly compared these to future predictions.”

Past episodes of rapid climate warming were associated with population declines, but Canteri cautioned that “the losses expected in the coming decades due to future climate change are likely to be even more severe than those in the past.”

The disappearance of reindeer would also have knock-on effects for Arctic ecosystems.

Eric Post, professor at the University of California Davis and a contributor to the study, told CBS News: “A reduction in tundra plant diversity resulting from the loss of reindeer and caribou will have many cascading effects, including reduction of carbon storage in Arctic soils. Continued losses will likely further exacerbate climatic warming through release of soil carbon to the atmosphere, which of course would further threaten reindeer and caribou as well as ourselves.”