476 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



According to 0kland (1928, pp. 45-46, 53), there are various 

 records, dating from about 1871 to 1887, of herds numbering from 

 about 5 to 500 individuals. Doubtless the stand was subject to 

 great variation. As long ago as 1839 v. Baer reported the animals 

 to have become rare, at least on the west coast, on account of the 

 frequent wintering of walrus-hunters. Nearly 50 years later Kri- 

 woscheja stated that Reindeer had become rarer since Samoyeds 

 had established permanent quarters in Novaya Zemlya in 1877, 

 but that about 1870 one could obtain Reindeer flesh everywhere. 

 In 1881-82, 800 animals were killed in the vicinity of Moller Bay. 

 But in 1882-83 the Samoyeds killed altogether few more than 100. 

 The number of Reindeer killed by colonists on Novaya Zemlya 

 between 1891 and 1906 is said to have been 2,610. 



The Samoyeds appear to have brought domesticated Reindeer 

 with them from the mainland to Novaya Zemlya (cf. Wollebaek, 

 1926, pp. 58-60) . If, as has happened elsewhere, there has resulted 

 here a certain mixture of the tame and the wild stock (which belong 

 to two different races), the wild Novaya Zemlya Reindeer would 

 tend to become extinct through dilution, even if they escaped direct 

 slaughter. 



The latest information at hand is the following account by Zub- 

 kov (1935, p. 61) : 



During a fairly long period the catch of reindeer occupied a prominent place 

 in the hunting on Novaya Zemlya, not only covering the need of meat and 

 skins of the hunting and fishing population, but forming also an object of 

 export. From 1891 to 1923, for instance, about 8000 reindeer skins were brought 

 out of Novaya Zemlya. 



Since the foundation of hunting settlements on Novaya Zemlya and up to 

 the present time, reindeer-hunting knew no restrictions. The hunting was 

 carried on through all seasons and especially at the periods of glazed frosts 

 there used to be wholesale killing of reindeer, the catch attaining a hundred 

 heads and more to every hunter. Owing to such rapacious hunting and the 

 consequent driving back of the herds from the rich pasture lands, the wild 

 reindeer has nearly wholly disappeared: a small herd only inhabits now the 

 still inappropriated coasts of the Northern island and a few groups are met 

 with on the Southern island. For the past ten years the catch amounted to 

 a few dozen heads per annum for the entire archipelago. 



The author deems it necessary to raise the question of an absolute inter- 

 diction of wild reindeer hunting, inasmuch as the hunting, as practiced at 

 present, may lead to the complete extinction of the reindeer on Novaya Zemlya. 



Finland Reindeer 



RANGIFER TARANDUS FENNICUS Lonnberg 



Rangifer tarandus fennicus Lonnberg, Arkiv f. Zoologi, vol. 6, no. 4, p. 10, 

 1909. ("Tome Lappmark (thus probably in Enontekis)," northwestern 

 Finland.) 



SYNONYM f: Rangifer tarandus silvicola Hilzheimer (1936). 



FIG.: Jacobi, 1931. pi. 5, fig. 35. 



