Reindeer are quite stupid to be honest. I don't know how many times I've sat i a car waiting for the stupid beasts to get of the road.Penner wrote:Whats up with Norway and killing reindeer via trains?
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... s-51395902A Norwegian reindeer herder says that freight trains have killed more than 100 of the animals on the tracks in three days.
Torstein Appfjell, a distraught reindeer herder in Helgeland county, said Sunday that the worst incident happened Saturday when 65 animals were mown down.
Appfjell told The Associated Press by telephone it was "totally tragic" and "unprecedented" for so many reindeer to lose their lives in this way. A total of 106 reindeer were killed since Thursday.
Appfjell represents four families in the area with a total of around 2,000 reindeer. He said that in the worst previous 12-month period, 250 animals were killed in train accidents.
VG newspaper reports that Bane NOR, which operates the trains, has now reduced speeds in the area.
Problem is they are something between domesticated and wild. And there is a lot more of them these days. Reindeer are to the Sami in Scandinavia as casinos are to native Americans.
Problem is they don't work well in traffic. All types of deer migrate, over the course of a day and sometimes seasonally. They consider heavily trafficked roads as obstacles and avoid those. Problem is that up in the north, that is sparsely populated, not many roads or railroads have that amount of traffic. That is solved by putting up fences. Fences aren't practical everywhere so that leaves areas where the reindeer owners need to herd their animals away from the tracks.
You will sometimes hear mean people suggest that the reindeer owners put the reindeer on the tracks when they need money since they are reimbursed by the state for their loss and sometimes the reimbursement is more than the market value but far be it from me to spread such nasty rumors.
