Reindeer, which has always been one of the symbolic animals of Christmas, are among the animal species at greatest risk of extinction. To put them in danger are above all climatic changes, but also the behavior of man and the scarce and inadequate interventions made in favor of their protection in all those parts of the world that should constitute their natural habitat.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Le reindeer, which has always been one of the symbolic animals of Christmas, are among the animal species at greatest risk of extinction. To put them in danger are above all the climate changes, but also the behavior of man and the scarce and inadequate interventions made in favor of their protection in all those parts of the world that should constitute their natural habitat.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released the news a few days before Christmas. From the data collected by the association's experts it emerged that the reindeer population in North America, and not only that, is currently in rapid decline. In the state of Ontario, the reindeer population has halved by 50%, while in British Columbia and in Canada Occidental, on the border with Montana, there have been decreases in their presence estimated between 40% and 60%, due to a reduction, by man, of the surface of forests which have always constituted its ideal habitat.
Further alarming data in this regard is reported by Survival International, according to which the most populous herd of reindeer of the world would have shrunk in the last forty years by 90% and more due to the reckless anthropization carried out in the Canadian provinces of Labrador and Quebec, where the construction of roads, hunting trips, flooding caused by the presence of hydroelectric plants and the progressive exploitation of the territorystrained by the ever-expanding iron-mining areas, they would considerably reduce their chances of survival. The leaders of the pack, stationed along the George River, have decreased, in the course of the last decades, from about 900 thousand to only 74 thousand.
They were the first to realize the gravity of the situation indigenous peoples from Central Eastern Canada, Innu e Cree, who now ask to be able to take an active part in the decisions regarding the desirable actions to safeguard the vegetation and fauna of their native lands, aware of how the hand of man can endanger the life of every living being considered inferior, but which actually constitutes an irreplaceable piece ofecosystem of which the human species is also an integral part. A first step was taken by Canada thanks to an intervention by the authorities, which sanctioned the reduction of the hunting season, in the area that affects the presence of the George River herd, from eight to three months (20 December 2011 - 20 March 2012).
While in Canada it is the Government itself that takes care of taking the necessary actions to safeguard the reindeer, in Europe their presence is officially protected by the Bern Convention for the conservation of wild flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Despite this, according to what reported by IUCN, the presence of reindeer in Europe would be threatened by poachers, in Russia, by the decrease in the surface of their natural habitat - the tundra - due to climate change, in Lapland (Finland) and from the activities related to some winter sports, in Norway. In light of this, major interventions aimed at monitoring the current situation and protecting the species need to be implemented in each of the areas of the planet where the presence of reindeer is registered.
Marta Albè
