@UngulateNerd92 these animals are part of the Central Arctic Herd. Grant’s Caribou if we go with the splitters, Barren-Ground Caribou if you side with the lumpers. All Caribou in Alaska are considered Grant’s or Barren-Ground Caribou. This distinction apparently has nothing to do with the habitat the animals live in. On the Kenai Peninsula, Caribou can be found in Boreal Woodland, Coastal Flats, above the tree line in the Kenai Mountains east of the Kenai NWR, and in the spruce Taiga. These animals are divided into the Kenai Lowland and Kenai Mountain “herds.” The Lowland Herd has a wider range and is divided into sub-herds. The Kenai Peninsula population, in total, is pretty small and made up of animals reintroduced after the original Kenai herds went extinct.
Most other Caribou in Alaska live in treeless areas (high altitude alpine Tundra or the wet Tundra north of the Arctic Circle or in western Alaska)…but there are herds in the central part of the state whose habitat is quite wooded. Still…Alaska describes all resident Caribou as belonging to the Barren-Ground subspecies. The exception would be the feral Reindeer on the Seward Peninsula and Kodiak Island.
@Pleistohorse thank you so much,I greatly appreciate it. Would the feral reindeer on the Seward Peninsula and Kodiak Island belong to ssp. sibiricus because I remember San Diego Zoo sourcing their Siberian reindeer from Alaska.
@UngulateNerd92 I believe so. I could be wrong. I’ll do some research and see what I find.
update: Government website says Siberian.
For Reindeer in western Alaska, domestic with limited husbandry rather than feral might be appropriate. Although the animals range freely and apparently find their way into the wild Caribou population on occasion.
The ones are Kodiak are descendants of animals brought in with the intent of them being “farmed”, however the agricultural management of the herd ended in the 1960’s and they have since been declared to be feral…with a hunting season establish to manage their numbers. Having no native Caribou on the island….I guess that makes sense.
I’m not sure, but I imagine the herd introduced on Adak Island in the Aleutians is also made up of Reindeer sourced from the Seward Peninsula herds (who in turn originate with animals brought from Siberia).
