A tiny reindeer found only in Canada's Arctic is making a comeback after nearly two decades of diminishing numbers that made wildlife experts fear the Peary caribou was heading toward extinction.
The Peary caribou, as the reindeer of Christmas lore is properly known, is a subspecies of its larger cousins that roam throughout Alaska, Canada, Russia and Scan-dinavia.It's not much larger than a Shetland pony and makes its home on Canada's Arctic islands, where summer lasts just a few weeks.
The vegetation the caribou eat is so scarce the animals often swim or cross the sea ice to other islands in search of food. That makes them vulnerable to early death.
But the situation seems to be improving.
"For every 100 female Peary caribou with a calf in our study area last June, 97 of them still had calves in their company in August," said Edmonton-based biologist Frank Miller of the Canadian Wildlife Service.
"This is an exceptionally favorable situation for an animal who usually loses between 30 to 50 percent of its calves in the same time period."
Miller's research has found that in some years the caribou calf population was almost completely wiped out by harsh weather.
In 1961, for example, there were an estimated 26,000 Peary caribou on the Queen Elizabeth Islands where most of the animals roam. By 1988 that number had declined to 4,000.