We all know what reindeer get up to at Christmas, but what about the rest of the year? A team of scientists at the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen have been using satellite technology to try to find out.

Collars with satellite tracking devices were fitted to two families of reindeer in the Cairngorms for a six week period this summer. The collars recorded all the animals’ positions every 10 minutes for two days each week and every four hours the rest of the time.

Dr Angela Sibbald, an animal ecologist at the Macaulay Institute commented, “Our preliminary analysis of the satellite data suggests that the tracking collars can provide a useful method of observing how individual animals interact within a group.”

The research team believe that this is a new application of satellite tracking, using it to look at the social interactions of animals that roam freely on the hills. As well as helping to describe how groups of animals behave, it is hoped that this work will lead to insights into the way animals forage for food, and may help in predicting their likely impact on vegetation.

Dr Sibbald added “We’ve carried out observational studies of how small flocks of sheep behave in fields, and we’ve also used the tracking devices to follow the movements of red deer herds, by tracking one or two individuals in the herd. We hope that this study will help to make the link between the different types of study and that this new approach will help us to identify how individual animals influence group behaviour.”

The reindeer that were used for this study are part of the Cairngorm Reindeer herd, which live in Glenmore. Tilly Smith, Director of the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre said, “In terms of the management of our free-ranging herd the results of this study will be incredibly revealing. It will give us a fuller picture of how they move around the hillside and will help us when we are out searching for them to know where they like to tuck themselves away.”

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe; from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk.

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10 Facts about Santa’s Reindeer

1. Santa has nine reindeer called Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph.
2. Reindeer are found mostly in the extreme north areas in arctic and subarctic regions (predominantly in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia)
3. In 1952, reindeer were re-introduced to Scotland by a Swedish Reindeer Herder, Mikel Utsi, as the natural stock had become extinct in the 10th century. Starting from a few reindeer, the herd has grown in numbers over the years and is currently held at between 130 and 150 by controlling breeding. The reindeer live in their natural environment out on the Cairngorm Mountains and the Cromdale Hills.
4. Male reindeer generally shed their antlers long before December 25, whereas the females retain theirs until at least January. The reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh are always shown as having antlers, so Santa’s reindeer are probably females.
5. A full grown reindeer can run between 12 and 15 miles an hour pulling a loaded sleigh. They can do this for many hours.
6. Santa’s reindeer eat carrots. Wild reindeer mainly eat lichens in winter, especially reindeer moss. However, they also eat the leaves of willows and birches, as well as sedges and grasses.
7. Each reindeer can pull up to twice its own weight, making it an ideal animal for pulling a sleigh loaded down with Christmas presents.
8. The fur of the reindeer turns a light colour in the winter and a darker colour in the summer.
9. Reindeer are about 3 ½ feet tall.
10. Reindeer have extra wide, splayed hooves enabling them to spread their weight on soft snow to prevent them from sinking.