Reindeer are iconic in the Arctic and subarctic, but their numbers are declining. As described in research published in Wildlife Monographs , investigators developed an environmental quality standard, or norm, for reindeer populations to evaluate their overall status, and gave them simple status categories of poor, medium, and good.
The standard has indices for the status of population performance, lichen resources, and human-related habitat loss and fragmentation. The scientists implemented their environmental quality standard for 10 national and 14 smaller wild reindeer areas in Norway. They found that only 1 population had a good status; 11 populations were ranked as medium and 12 as poor.
The research team hopes that the environmental quality standard can be used in management efforts aimed at securing the long-term conservation of wild reindeer.
"We are at a critical moment for reindeer conservation, and we hope that the quality standard will clearly convey the urgency of the situation and provide both incentive and guidance for action," said corresponding author Atle Mysterud, PhD, of the University of Oslo.
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wmon.70005
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