Populations of wild and feral reindeer in Siberia and Far East of Russia

Identification and cataloging of discrete reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) populations in Siberia and the Far East of Russia has not been carried out. This prohibits accurate measures of population structure and dynamics that would allow more intensive management of this important renewable resource. To rectify the lack of information, an inventory was made that identifies 84 wild populations and 3 feral populations originating from domestic reindeer. This inventory summarizes the information available on the location, approximate population size, approximate range size, and occurrence by ecoregions and habitat types of each of those 87 reindeer populations. The 87 reindeer populations used a collective landmass of about 3 000 000 km. The range size for each population was calculated to be between 446 km and 392 267 km, with a mean ± SE of 34 033 ± 5734 km. The 86 populations for which population size could be approximated totaled 790 655 reindeer, with an approximate mean ± SE of 9194 ± 2517, a minimum size of 50, and maximum size of 145 000. The location of the calving grounds could be determined for only 26 (30%) of the 87 reindeer populations.


Introduction
Prior to this inventory, identification and cataloging of discrete reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) populations in Siberia and the Far East of Russia had not been carried out and no detailed assessment at the level of the population for the status of reindeer in those vast regions could be made.This lack of information prohibited measures of population structure and dynamics that would allow more intensive management of this important renewable resource.The inventory was made without the aid of data from animal-marking, radio-tracking, or satellite telemetry studies.
Encouragement to complete this effort came from the listing of statistics for many populations of North American caribou and Norwegian reindeer that had been identified, their sizes estimated, and their ranges delineated before radio-collaring and satellite telemetry studies were widespread and had been conducted (e.g., Skoog, 1968;Hemming, 1971;Klein & White, 1978;Williams & Heard, 1986;Skogland, 1989;Ferguson & Gauthier, 1992).For example, as data accumulated, it became apparent that the earlier concept of a "center of habitation" with only one caribou population throughout Alaska (Skoog, 1968), should be replaced with a management scheme based on many discrete populations (e.g., Valkenburg, 1998Valkenburg, , 2001)).Also, as time passed, a greater number of populations were identified in Canada (e.g., Williams & Heard, 1986;Ferguson & Gauthier, 1992).The following reports the compilation of information that could be obtained for identifying and describing reindeer populations in Siberia and the Far East of Russia (Maps in Figs. . approximate range size was calculated .This facilitated the incorporation of observations made over time.As a result, however, the apparent accuracy of each reported numerical value does not necessarily reflect the accuracy of the approximated range size (e.g., the maximum range size of 392 267 km 2 would most likely be just as accurate if reported as 390 000 km 2 ).
Although the accepted standard for naming Rangifer populations (herds) in North America is usually after the location of their calving grounds (e.g., Thomas, 1967;Klein & White, 1978;Valkenburg, 1998;Russell et al., 2002), this could not be done for most reindeer populations in this inventory because that information is not often available in Russia.Only a few studies of reindeer distribution during the calving season have been made: primarily in the Taymyr by Kuksov (1981) and subsequently in Yakutia by Safronov et al. (1999).We obtained a little information on calving grounds from Shtilmark & Azarov (1975), Malygina (2000), Zhukov (2000), Shirshov (2003), Chernyavsky (1984), andKupriyanov (2003), and also from V. I. Mosolov (pers.comm.) and V. I. Fil (unpubl. data).
Because of the limited information, there is even uncertainty about populations whose calving grounds are known.For example, in the Western Taymyr, tundra calving grounds are known in the basins of Pura and Agapa Rivers (Fig. 7, Kuksov, 1981;Kolpashchikov, 2000).Tens of thousands of reindeer arrive for calving in this area from different directions -SE from Eastern Evenkiya and Yakutia, SSE from Evenkiya, through Putorany Mountains, and SW from the left bank of Enisey River.It is most likely that these reindeer represent two different populations (No. 13 and 17, in Table 1).However, Syroechkovsky (1986), Pavlov et al. (1996), andKolpashchikov (2000) believe that there is a single numerous Taymyr population, including populations No. 13, 14, 17 and 21 in Table 1.
Another controversial locality is Western Yakutia, where numerous reindeer inhabit the northern parts of the basins of Lena and Olenek rivers (Fig. 2,populations No. 36,37,38,45).One of the calving areas is on the delta of the Lena River (Fig. 15).In 1960s, the population that calved there was very large (tens of thousands) and its range overlapped ranges of neighboring populations (Egorov, 1965).Now, because of human persecution, this population has been diminished to a few hundred (Population No. 45 in Table 1).
We used data on reindeer distributions in all seasons in order to make the information in this inventory more complete.The approximations of the sizes of different populations were obtained from a wide spectrum of sources that yielded data of markedly different quality and thus their relative accuracies varied.Ecoregions are presented according to Bailey (1998) and the main habitat types occupied by each population are noted.One asterisk (*) was used in Table 1 to identify a population that probably includes some individuals from any other population or possibly even more than one other population.Two asterisks (**) were used in Table 1 to identify a population whose information is out-of-date and needs to be updated.
Each of the 36 populations in the inventory with rough approximations of population size was adjusted to a single value.That is, all populations identified as being "A few 100" animals were arbitrarily set at reindeer, any > or < qualification was ignored (eg.> 1000 or < 1000 was treated as 1000), and each population reported as a spread of values (e.g., 1500−2000) was assigned its mid-point value (e.g., 1500−2000 = 1750).This procedure allowed an assessment of (99%) of the populations rather than of just the (58%) possibly with more accurate approximations of population size.All 87 populations were used in calculating the overall statistics for range size.

Wild and Feral Populations
To rectify the lack of information on populations of reindeer in Siberia and the Far East of Russia, an inventory was made that identifies 84 wild populations and 3 feral populations originating from domestic reindeer (Tables 1, 2, 3).This inventory summarizes the information available on the location, approximate population size, approximate size, and occurrence by ecoregions and habitat types of those 87 reindeer populations.
The location of the calving grounds could be determined for only 26 (30%) of the 87 reindeer populations (Table 2).Another 27 (31%) of the populations exist on ranges separated from each other and therefore, because of their isolation, they seemingly can be identified with confidence.These are island populations or populations inhabiting ranges surrounded by vacant areas where reindeer have been exterminated.For example, on the Kamchatka Peninsula, three populations are isolated from each other (Voropanov et al., 2003).The remaining 34 (39%) of the 87 populations inhabit taiga and mountain taiga, based on data obtained mostly during winter.However, much of the evidence for these 34 populations comes only from indirect but frequent observations of reindeer tracks.Obviously, it is hard to determine if these animals live separately from all other reindeer in neighboring localities.Future investigations using radio-collaring will help determine how many populations exist in these areas.
These 87 reindeer populations used a collective landmass of about 3 000 000 km 2 .The range size for each population was calculated to be between km 2 and 392 267 km 2 , with a mean ± SE range size of 34 033 ± 5734 km 2 .Only 25 (29%) of the 87 reindeer populations occupied ranges larger than the mean range size but collectively 81% of the approximated number of reindeer occurred on those ranges.The 86 populations for which some measure of population size could be approximated totaled 790 655 reindeer.Those 86 populations occupied 99% of the collective range of the 87 reindeer populations.The 12 largest reindeer populations collectively occupied only 43% of the entire reindeer range of the 86 populations, but contributed 85% of the approximated number of reindeer.No approximation of population size could be made for one of the 87 populations (Table 1, No. 38).
Enough information exists to allow further examination of the basic statistics for 86 of the 87 reindeer populations by comparing the 50 populations with a more accurate approximation of population size to the 36 populations with a less accurate approximation of population size (Table 3).The ranges occupied by those 50 and 36 reindeer populations represented 82% and 17% respectively, of the total range occupied by the 87 populations.As there did not appear to be any consistent relationship between the sizes of the populations and the amounts of range that they occupied, it follows that there is also no relationship between the overall mean density of a population and the size of the range that it used (Tables 1, 3).

Fig. 7 .
Fig. 7. Map of Basins of Agapa and Mokhovaya Rivers, Hills along Upper Agapa River, and Between Pura and Agapa Rivers calving grounds.

Table 1 .
Inventory of 87 wild and feral reindeer populations identified in Siberia and the Far East of Russia, 2006 a .

Table 2 .
Known location of calving grounds for 26 reindeer populations in Siberia and the Far East of Russia.

Table 3 .
Various statistics for 86 reindeer populations in Siberia and the Far East of Russia.