ARCTIC RESOURCES 231 



There is less snow the farther north you go, generally speaking, but 

 this seems to mean little to reindeer, for they will often avoid patches 

 that are nearly bare and by apparent preference wade into a snowdrift 

 where they dig several feet down for their feed. 



Reindeer breeders have a seasonal problem to control the calving; 

 for, if it is too early, hard weather may kill numbers of the newborn 

 animals — although the death rate of reindeer calves in Alaska is not 

 as high as that of cattle calves in Texas. But the most serious climatic 

 problems of the reindeer ranchers, so far as we know, are about winter 

 rains and thaws which produce what is called a glitter — an ice covering 

 over the grass which makes it difficult or impossible for the animals to 

 feed. This is more likely to happen near seacoasts than inland, and 

 the more likely the warmer the winter — another reason why reindeer 

 are safer the farther north they go, the winters, generally speaking, 

 being more uniformly cold. 



The chief grazing problem of the Arctic ranchers is not directly 

 climatic but rather botanical. Reindeer, although they do not live 

 exclusively on mosses and lichens as was formerly supposed, never- 

 theless are particular in their choice of feed, leaving perhaps three- 

 quarters of the vegetation unused. It happens that there is a wild 

 animal, the ovibos (musk ox), which eats exactly the foods untouched 

 by reindeer and which is as well if not better adapted to the Arctic 

 climate as the reindeer. Neither of them needs a barn for shelter, 

 nor does either need artificial winter feeding. Both may lose some of 

 their calves if there is a spell of particularly bad weather at the calving 

 season, but otherwise they are immune to cold or blizzard. 



They differ in many things, however. The reindeer flees from its 

 enemies and only with comparative success; large numbers would, 

 therefore, be killed by wolves, except for the protection of herdsmen. 

 The ovibos does not flee from wolves but has a successful defense; so 

 that, whether in the wild or domestic state, wolves would cause only 

 small losses, chiefly among newborn calves. Reindeer travel easily 

 and rapidly like horses and can therefore be driven hundreds and 

 even thousands of miles from the home ranges to a seaport market. 

 But the ovibos is slow and clumsy, perhaps impossible to drive and 

 certainly difficult, so that one would have to have a transportation 

 system for marketing, except where the ranches are near a coast. 

 Reindeer meat, while preferred to beef by many, is nevertheless differ- 

 ent from beef. There is, accordingly, a certain small problem in 

 introducing it. Man, like most animals, is conservative about chang- 

 ing foods. We are already partly liberalized about vegetables — we have 

 hundreds, we are used to meeting new ones, and are therefore always 

 ready to welcome one more. But we have only a half a dozen meats, 

 most of us have seldom and some of us have never learned to eat a 

 new meat, and so we are suspicious of any proposed addition to our 



