Related News
Arctic herders carry on traditions
Print Edition
IN Russia’s remote Arctic regions, reindeer herding has been a way of life for centuries. Each winter, herders in Russia’s sparsely populated Nenets Autonomous District corral their reindeer into open-air pens before selecting weak animals to be culled.
The cull helps preserve the region’s fragile tundra by keeping herd sizes down, and local people sell reindeer meat, hide and antlers to make a living.
Igor Ledkov, who works at the Harp agricultural cooperative in the village of Krasnoye, said herders try to maintain the local reindeer population at around 15,000-17,000 animals.
“The size of the cull each year varies, this year we plan to cull more than 3,000 reindeer,” Ledkov said.
“We wait until there’s enough snow on the ground so the reindeer don’t trample the best grazing land when we corral them into the pens.”
Krasnoye is the only settlement in the Nenets region connected by road to the regional capital, Naryan-Mar, which is over 2,000 kilometres north of Moscow. Temperatures can sink below minus 40 degrees Celsius in winter.
At the Harp cooperative, the reindeer have their antlers removed before the weaker specimens are taken to the slaughter house. Herders saw off antlers from even the stronger animals as they are valuable and fall off by themselves if left to grow. Reindeer hides are salted to preserve them before being sold for export to countries including Finland.
(Reuters)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
