Several bridges that will be specially built for reindeer are now being planned over roads and railways.
That the reindeer can move more freely in the landscape is especially important now in view of climate change.
In the winter digs reindeer down to the lichens they want to eat under the snow cover. But periods of snowfall mixed with rain and the snow means that the snow has turned into a hard layer of ice that the reindeer have to fight with.
To get to pastures with better snow, they often need to cross major roads. There, the game fence puts a stop or they get up on the road and risk being hit.
– In a changing climate with difficult snow conditions, it will be extra important to be able to find and access alternative pastures, says landscape ecologist Per Sandström at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
He looks special bridges for reindeer as a good way to help animals move more freely. He calls them renoducts and there are only a few of them today.
But this year, the idea is that the first of a dozen new renoducts that the Swedish Transport Administration is planning in Norrbotten and Västerbotten will begin construction over the E4 north of Umeå.
– Now I really look forward to us having the opportunity to pass undisturbed, says reindeer herder Tobias Jonsson.
He tells that Reindeer herding today, without reindeer husbandry, means that the entire E4 must be shut down on site.
And an advantage with the new reindeer herds will be that reindeer herders have been involved and chosen both the place and the design so that the reindeer will dare to cross, he says.
– For example, to make it open at the top. Not that they can jump down, because it has a two meter high fence. But the reindeer look to the sides so it’s not like going into a tunnel for them. They do not want to be trapped.
Source: ICELAND NEWS