ST. PETERSBURG, December 11. /TASS/. The reindeer herd on the hard-to-reach Kolguev Island in the Nenets Autonomous Region's Arctic area is rebuilt to 3,000 animals, the regional government's press service told TASS.
Over two winter seasons after 2012, there was a massive loss of deer, where the animals almost died out. As of late 2014, the population was 153 deer, and most of them were female. For many years, the region's one of the largest reindeer herding farms used to work on the island. Their herd was 7,000 thousand animals.
"Right now [the number of deer on the island] is about 3,000," the press service said.
According to the region's Governor Yury Bezdudny results of a recent assessment of pasture capacity show up to 6,000 deer can feed on them. "We have been rebuilding the herd on the Kolguev, and the herd is growing, which is very good," he told the Arctic: Present and Future international forum.
The region has been working on the reindeer husbandry restoration on the Kolguev Island since 2015. In 2015, deer were repeatedly brought to Kolguev by helicopters from the mainland to rebuild the herd.
The 13th international forum Arctic: Today and the Future took place in St. Petersburg on December 7 and 8. The forum was organized by the interregional non-governmental organization Association of Polar Explorers with the support and participation of the Federation Council, State Duma, and the Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other relevant ministries and agencies. The MMC Norilsk Nickel was the forum’s general partner, and the VTB Bank was the event's official sponsor. TASS was the forum's general information partner.