Monitoring Svalbard reindeer

In 1978, 15 reindeer were introduced to Brøggerhalvøya; the animals were collected near Longyearbyen. Prior to this introduction Svalbard reindeer had been absent for ~100 years on Brøggerhalvøya. Since the introduction the population has been monitored annually.

After a population crash during an extreme winter in 1993/94, which resulted in mass die-offs and emigration out of Brøggerhalvøya, the monitoring area has been widened to include areas adjacent to Brøggerhalvøya. The reindeer population in Adventdalen, and its side-valleys, has been monitored annually since 1979. The Svalbard reindeer monitoring programme has two principal objectives: 1) to obtain knowledge of the population status of Svalbard reindeer, and 2) to provide necessary basic data for ecological studies related to understanding the mechanisms underlying the observed population fluctuations. The latter is related both to population ecology (e.g. the effects of climatic variation and the potential impact of human activity) and to a more ecosystem-based approach to understand the links between different trophic levels in this Arctic ecosystem.

Prosjektleder: Dr. Ronny Aanes