‘Rewilders’ and farmers lock horns over plan to cull 25,000 deer from Cairngorms National Park

[unlacedgecko]

Well done...that's takes us- and @Humble Village Farmer - a good way forward.

Caribou are the North American version, and have never - to my knowledge- been domesticated.
Reindeer are Eurasian, and have been, to varying levels, over thousands of years.
I'm minded someone once tried to take reindeer to Alaska to 'farm' instead of wild caribou

It's often said the reindeer domesticated the Sami, rather than the other way around.

Major upheaval to the reindeer herder way of life in the Russian Arctic circle though. The Kate Humble series "Nomads" had an episode looking at how they're being evicted from their traditional lands for oil and gas extraction.

 

[Dry Rot]

Deer numbers where I am are completely off the scale. We were getting up to 150 in here last year every night. Silage fields destroyed, fences destroyed, forced to buy concentrate to feed ewes to make up for loss of grazing.

There's deer killed on the road every other day, I had 15 in a small field of young lambs the other day and they scattered the sheep everywhere.

Do you not have a right to shoot marauders?

 

[egbert]

It's often said the reindeer domesticated the Sami, rather than the other way around.

Major upheaval to the reindeer herder way of life in the Russian Arctic circle though. The Kate Humble series "Nomads" had an episode looking at how they're being evicted from their traditional lands for oil and gas extraction.

There's no reason for you to know, but I'm buddies with a few Nenets from the Yamal peninsula.
It's a very long story, but some came over on a cultural exchange, staying with some veggie musicians locally.
We went over one evening to meet them, taking a load of Galloway fillet - the poor Siberians weren't used to lentils etc.
Over a good deal of whisky - they like a drop- we discussed our shared culture of shared grazing, matriarchs of herbivores, family earmarks etc etc, becoming firm friends.

On another visit, we took them out to see my coos.
A neighbour came into my yard on his quad to ask about a missing heifer, and I introduced them, asking him how far his historic flock travel in a year.
(They winter 15 miles away down on the coast, and summer about 4 miles out over from the moorgate)
Tatyana was politely impressed, but admitted her mum and sister follow their reindeer on an annual trip of - i think it was- 1100km. They have no house, but live, still, following the herd living in tents.
It was a sublime cultural interface.

I should say, the poor girl translating struggles when we get together. Castration methods and ear notch names don't translate easily...although the crunchy noise of the burdizzos is seemingly universal.


This is them singing about their reindeer

 

[Dave6170]

Do you not have a right to shoot marauders?

Pity they are worth feck all at the moment

 

[Dave6170]

Deer numbers where I am are completely off the scale. We were getting up to 150 in here last year every night. Silage fields destroyed, fences destroyed, forced to buy concentrate to feed ewes to make up for loss of grazing.

There's deer killed on the road every other day, I had 15 in a small field of young lambs the other day and they scattered the sheep everywhere.

I have about 20 stags coming into grass fields just now and can see how much they can graze

 

[Exfarmer]

I thought red deer and reindeer were the same species, or have I got mixed up with something else?

Reindeer and Moose are I believe the same species, they are very different to red
edit to say that after studying further posts it is obvious that it is caribou which are the same as reindeer

 

[unlacedgecko]

Reindeer and Moose are I believe the same species, they are very different to red

Reindeer and caribou are the same species.

Moose is totally different.

 

[ollie989898]

Nomadic cultures which follow their herds (and thus the weather) are surely the lowest impact societies on Earth. The original conservation/mob grazing farmers. They leave nothing but footprints. A system that worked well in virtually all kinds of biomes, truly universal worldwide use and surely found on every continent. You can't help but feel a pang of something when you learn or read about them.