Lightning Kills 323 Reindeer
The Associated Press reports more than 300 wild reindeer have been killed by lighting in central Norway. The Norwegian Environment Agency (NEA) says 323 animals were killed, including 70 calves, in a lightning storm on Friday on the Hardangervidda mountain plateau. Agency spokesman Kjartan Knutsen told The Associated Press it’s not uncommon for reindeer or other wildlife to be killed by lightning strikes, but this was an unusually deadly event. “We have not heard about such numbers before,” Knutsen said.
He said reindeer tend to stay very close to each other in bad weather, which could explain how so many were killed at once. According to John Jensenius of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in a report on TheVerge.com, animals—and people—get killed by the ground current.
“First, there’s a direct strike — this is what most people think of when they think of lightning — that hits the tree or maybe the ground nearby. The energy then spreads along the ground surface, and if you’re anywhere near that lightning strike, you absorb it and get shocked. Lightning goes up one leg and down another,” Jensenius said. “Animals are more vulnerable because their legs are spread out more, so the ground currents travel more easily in their bodies. It doesn’t matter if they’re touching, or exactly how close they are, it matters that they were all in the area hit by lightning. Ground currents are the thing that’s responsible for the most lightning deaths and injuries in both people and animals,” he added.
Thousands of reindeer migrate across the barren Hardanangervidda plateau as the seasons change, according to NEA.
