EUROPE’S last remaining population of wild reindeer is in peril. Its survival is being threatened by the building of dams, mountain cabins and hydroelectric schemes across their natural habit in southern Norway.
Conservationists warn that human activity in wilderness areas is growing so rapidly that both wild and farmed reindeer, or caribou, may one day suffer a similar fate in their strongholds across the Arctic tundra and taiga.
Christian Nellemann of the United Nations Environment Programme in Arendal, Norway, and colleagues have documented the steep decline of the Norwegian reindeer. To flee human construction projects, animals crowd into ever smaller…
