REINDEER IN ALASKA. 31 
merly, fishermen and hunters. Confinement of herds to small areas 
is not due to lack of range or to crowded allotments ; on the contrary 
there is an abundance of available range. There has been little or 
no attention given to the matter of carrying capacity, or to the fact 
that with an increase in numbers of stock it becomes necessary to 
use more range. 
One result of close herding is a cutting up of the range by the sharp 
hoofs of the reindeer, which in some cases causes serious injury to the 
forage cover. Holding the herd locally under close herding thus 
means localized mechanical injury to the range in addition to over- 
grazing. The remedy, of course, is open herding, which implies the 
spreading of the herd over more territory and a movement from 
point to point, thus materially lessening the possibilities of damage, 
and maintaining the recuperative power of the range as a whole. 
The matter of open herding is treated under the subject of Distribu- 
tion and Control (p. 36). 
To determine whether overgrazing is taking place, both the condi- 
tion of the range and the condition of the stock must be watched. 
The extreme stage of overgrazing is marked by denudation, in the 
form of erosion and barrenness, replacing a former vegetative cover ; 
but this form does not as yet occur in Alaska, except for small ex- 
amples on old corral grounds. 
Overgrazing does not necessarily imply complete destruction of 
the vegetative cover. On most ranges there is at least a small growth 
of plants of which the reindeer will eat very little except in case of 
necessity, and a range should not be grazed until the stock are re- 
duced to feeding on forage of low palatability. Close grazing of this 
class of vegetation is an indication that the range is overgrazed, and 
it is soon reflected in the condition of stock, which is apt to be un- 
satisfactory, as shown by poorly nourished animals and particularly 
by a heavy infestation of parasites. Parasitism and overgrazing 
commonly go together, the degree of infestation often being in direct 
ratio to the extent of overgrazing. 
The considerable area of tundra on the summer range present an 
important factor bearing on range utilization, particularly in the 
case of the wet tundra type along the coast. Owing to the soft wet 
ground, this class of range is much more susceptible to injury, 
chiefly through trampling and contamination, than the drier sites, 
as is plainly indicated by cut-up ground and trampled forage. In 
extreme examples there is a close network of stock trails between the 
hummocks, leaving the latter standing up in sharp relief against a 
background where the former vegetation has been killed or eaten. 
Under this condition an absence of some of the more palatable forage 
plants and a greater cropping of the less palatable may be noted on 
the hummocks themselves. 
