The only deer humans semi-domesticated at real scale
Reindeer, or caribou (Rangifer tarandus), circle the Arctic and subarctic in migratory and sedentary herds. Sizes run from tiny Svalbard animals to massive Osborn's caribou. They alone among deer sustain large-scale semi-domestication for food, clothing, and transport across northern cultures.
Reindeer is the European name and caribou the North American one for animals of the genus Rangifer, which ranges across tundra, taiga and mountains from Scandinavia through Siberia to Alaska and Canada. Some herds migrate enormous distances; others stay put. Recent studies argue for splitting reindeer and caribou into separate species. Size spans a wide gap, from the small Svalbard reindeer to the hefty Osborn's caribou, and coat colour and antler shape vary enough to help tell forms apart. Uniquely among deer, females can grow antlers too, though how often depends on the population.
In North America, migratory barren-ground caribou roam Arctic Alaska and northern Canada, while woodland caribou inhabit the boreal forest of the northeast, a lineage that includes Labrador and Newfoundland herds. The George River herd in Labrador numbered 800,000 to 900,000 in the 1990s but had crashed below 9,000 by January 2018. Three forms are already gone, including the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou and the Sakhalin reindeer.
Eurasia still holds big populations. About 20,000 wild mountain reindeer survive in Norway, notably on Hardangervidda; Sami villages manage roughly 250,000 in Sweden; and Russia oversees 19 Siberian tundra herds totalling about 940,000, with the Taimyr herd the largest wild group on Earth. Island populations persist on Novaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island, where 200 to 300 feral domestic animals live.
Charles Hamilton Smith gave the genus its name, echoing a word used by Albertus Magnus that may trace back to a Sami term, and Linnaeus supplied tarandus. Inuit across the Canadian Arctic call the animal tuktu, and Greenlanders tuttu. Its ancestors split from cattle, sheep and goats about 36 million years ago, and Ice Age refugia shaped today's genetic divisions. As the only deer semi-domesticated on a large scale, reindeer have fed, clothed and sheltered Arctic peoples since prehistory.
Source: Reindeer
