It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an outdoor guide group in Norway, as about half a thousand reindeer made their way across a fjord.
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Fortunately, the group was able to capture photos of the mass movement.
Check it out:
Orca’dventure, a guide service for orca sightseeing and scuba diving in Norway, shared these images.
“Two days ago, we were lucky enough to see one of the most rare animal events in the fjord, the crossing of a reindeer herd,” they wrote in their post. “They were 500/600, impossible to count them. They swim fast; it was very impressive.”
Learn More About Reindeer
First, a few things. A fjord is a narrow body of water that extends inland from the sea. Second, as you can see in this picture, reindeer are very real and live in cold places such as Norway. However, in North America, you’ve probably heard their more common name: caribou. And they can swim, apparently.
“Caribou are amazing swimmers thanks to their buoyant, hollow hair and wide hooves,” wrote the National Park Service on its website. “Adults are known to swim as fast as six miles per hour. In northern Canada, adults and two-month-old calves have been documented swimming between islands that are 1.5 miles apart.”
While they probably can’t swim across an entire ocean, the species has been documented swimming about 35 miles, which makes it easy for this herd to cross a narrow strip of water like a fjord.
Reindeer, or caribou, are also known to travel in large herds. While this image captures a few hundred of the animals, other herds include hundreds of thousands of caribou. In Alaska, the Western Arctic Herd was once documented at around 490,000 animals in 2003. However, more recent numbers show the herd around 201,000. While this may seem concerning, officials say this fluctuation is part of a normal cycle.
Have you ever seen a reindeer in the wild?
