Rudolph the best reindeer - who once roamed across Ireland

Did you know reindeer once roamed across our rolling greens fields? At least according to copywriter Robert L May. Dick Warner has more.

In the run-up to Christmas there was a lot of talk about reindeer, and even more singing! Most of this was due to an American copywriter, Robert L May.

In 1939, as part of a marketing campaign, he published a verse story about a reindeer called Rudolph who, on account of the unusual colour of his nose, was ostracised.

To say that his story was a success would be an understatement, and the fictional character of Rudolph dominates perceptions of these interesting deer, which roamed across Ireland until relatively recently.

Reindeer have a huge range. They are found around the world in the boreal forests and tundra of the far north. In Canada and Alaska they don’t call them reindeer they call them caribou but they’re the same species. There have been some arguments about this but it’s generally accepted today that there are 14 sub-species but only one species.

Two of these sub-species are extinct and three more are endangered. There are certainly differences. Alaskan caribou are nearly white, large and long-legged and undertake a massive annual migration. The reindeer of Svalbard Island are tiny, dark and have very short legs. They don’t migrate. Another difference is that all north American caribou are completely wild animals while most Eurasian reindeer are either domesticated or ‘semi-domesticated’.

Semi-domesticated is an unusual concept. The animals may be owned by a person or a group who harvest meat and other products from them but they are left to pick their own mates, so there is no selective breeding. In appearance and genetic make-up, semi- domesticated reindeer are identical to wild. Antlers are another valuable product. Reindeer are unusual among deer in that females and juveniles grow antlers, as well as males, and although the males shed their antlers after the autumn rut the females and young retain theirs until spring, extending the antler-collecting season.

We know reindeer once roamed Ireland as bones and antlers have been found. Recent archaeological work has pushed back the date of the earliest human habitation here to 12.500 years ago so there is no doubt humans and reindeer lived here at the same time and little doubt the humans hunted the reindeer.

It’s hard to figure when the reindeer became extinct. I can’t find a good sequence of dated bone finds though it’s possible this may exist in some obscure scientific paper.

In Britain the record is better. There were reindeer in Yorkshire in 9750 BP, (before present) in Scotland in 8300BP and some evidence for even more recent presence. Today there’s a herd of free roaming reindeer in the highlands of Scotland, but they are descendants of animals introduced from Sweden in 1952.