Reindeer 'shrinking' as Arctic climate change continues

Arctic reindeer are "shrinking" as climate change continues to affect ecosystems near the North Pole, say scientists.

The average weight of an adult reindeer on the Svalbard group of islands, to the north of Norway, fell from 121lbs to a little more than 106lbs between 1994 and 2010, a drop of 12 per cent.

Rising temperatures have led to an abundance of food in the summer, making females more likely to conceive in the autumn and add to herd numbers, said Professor Steve Albon of the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, which carried out the study with a team of Norwegian researchers.

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However, they have also caused the usual winter snowfall to be replaced by rain, which then freezes over, making edible pastures inaccessible for wildlife.

Winters are getting "increasingly tough", Albon said, and reindeer will often starve or give birth to under-developed young due to problems with the frozen food supply.

Forecasts for the future are not optimistic. "Scientists are predicting there will be more smaller reindeer in the Arctic in the coming decades, even possible extinction," says the International Business Times.

Temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at a faster rate than anywhere else on the planet due to a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The IBT adds that the scientists' study follows a report by the Arctic Council last month that the region is facing large-scale "regime changes" as a result of global warming, with particular focus on Greenland and a possible collapse of fisheries due to depleted oxygen levels in the ocean.