There were experiment painting reindeer antlers here in Finland. But it failed, the paint wont last. So nothing to see here really. Yet another internet ”thing” circling around

Did they try other alternatives, like reflective tape? Wrap it around like handlebar tape. Make it degradable or else the woods will fill up with junk.

Let's brainstorm some more, design a special hunter-seeker robot powered by AI that captures deer in the wild and performs this menial task.

Thank you, I'll show myself out.

You seem to have forgotten to take your comment out with you.

Title should be changed to reindeer, not deer. As those are domesticated by the Sami people. Then it makes more sense and should not be a major task, since they are regularly caught to be ear-marked for example. In general a good idea IMO.

For deer it would be trickier, but I imagine you could somehow do it by setting up feeding stations (pretty common with hunters) and spray them when they approach it. But it would be messy. Now my imagination is wandering, please stop me.

It's not possible at all to do this for white-tailed deer. The does and fawns don't grow antlers. My state, NJ, has a population of over 100,000 deer and average densities over 100 individuals per square mile (with some areas over double that).

You could snare the does and put high-vis reflective vests on them.

Indeed. You might as well try to paint all the squirrels or pigeons.

Sounds like you need wolves

The coyotes are evolving up in size to fill that niche, it's becoming a problem.

Wouldn’t that be a death sentence by making them super easy for predators to spot?

Luckily most predators don't use headlights.

No, but their antlers are now white and likely reflect more light in general than uncoated.

Are deer relying on hiding from predators or are they just relying on being able to escape predators? Deer are fairly large animals so they're kinda conspicuous already. I think they also don't get white coats during winter, so they stick out from the snow.

Just a random WI deer story. I have a few but here’s one.

I was driving on a two-lane highway and saw a deer up ahead on the side of the road so I started slowing down. The deer saw me, panicked and ran into the brush/woods, then changed direction and ran out and back toward the highway. I kept slowing. It changed direction and ran back toward the woods, changed direction again and ran back toward the highway. By now I was at a full stop and parallel to the deer. It ran head first into the side of my truck, fell down, got up and sort of stumbled back into the woods…

During the rut, I've seen muleys here in Montana act absolutely bonkers. I once saw a young but large buck darting in and out of traffic, playing chicken with oncoming 50 mph vehicles, to impress a group of does. He'd run across the road right in front of a car, then pronk around proudly while the does stared at him.

> while the does stared at him

I hope they stared in horror and not arousal, otherwise these deer will never learn

Sounds like human males in rut

Was there a game fence preventing it from entering the woods maybe? Not sure how you do in WI but here in Sweden highways are always lined with game fences.

The sad thing is when an animal somehow gets over it, under it, however, and is then trapped on the highway side.

We don't really have game fences like that here. The closest thing is sound barriers along freeways through suburban and urban areas which occasionally trap animals, but even then there's usually enough room along the side of the road a spooked animal won't feel the need to run back towards the road after fleeing it.

This is common, deer are incredibly stupid. For those postulating the existence of a fence, no. They do this when there is no fence, both at night and also in broad daylight when there are no headlights to dazzle them either.

My guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

And based on the USGS map, it is very common in WI.

Eh, deer are just very stupid and indecisive when there are headlights. That’s why “shining” while hunting is illegal. There’s a chance that it had CWD but given my experience with them in Michigan, it’s just as likely to have been a dumb one.

Reindeer under headlights: Oh, I think it’s my time.

Reminds me of efforts to reduce roadkill in Australia.

"The virtual fence is the latest attempt to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. It uses a line of posts spaced along the roadside, each with a unit producing loud sounds and flashing lights aimed away from the road. Vehicle headlights activate the units, which are claimed to alert animals and reduce the risk of collision."

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024...

We have that in a forested section near me in New Jersey. I think it might be this: https://deerdeter.com/

In the New Forest national park in the UK (where there are about 5000 free roaming ponies) they've been fitting them with reflective/hi-viz collars for years. Makes them much easier to see at night in winter.

https://www.hlsnewforest.org.uk/2024/10/24/reflective-collar...

"none of the efforts have helped reduce the annual 4,000 reindeer road deaths"

https://apnews.com/general-news-801aa30308b24b459251c60d569d...

Slowing speeds would work

I don't know reindeer but white tailed deer, possums, raccoons, rabbits, and nocturnal birds don't care how fast you're going. As someone else mentioned, you can be stopped and they'll run into your vehicle.

None of these animals instincts prepared them for the cacophony and lightshow of transportation. Everyone doing 15mph might solve 90% though, but I'll let that be your running platform.

Have they had better luck with wildlife crossings since 2016?

https://transportation.libguides.com/c.php?g=849313&p=607536...

A few years ago someone made a fluorescent GM rabbit. I guess if they give that gene to a deer after a few generations it would spread through the population and solve the issue. If we consider it safe and ethical to release GM animals into the wild...

They care about these animals but they are still animals, to dumb to avoid the road and they probably don't mind having such horns and it could save their life

I was surprised how many dead deer I saw driving down the M11/A11 in Norfolk. I think I counted 10 dead muntjac.

s/is/tried

They are painting antlers. No information on how they are going to do this every year. (since antlers are only around for eight months a year and I imagine you have to paint them once they’re fully grown so four months in?) What an absolutely useless article, how do you actually bag and tag every reindeer in the entire country, it makes absolutely no sense

There are no wild reindeer in Finnish Lapland. Every reindeer has an owner. The Sami, who practice large-scale reindeer herding, routinely round up every reindeer in the country every year.

They also prevent predation by exterminating all predators that threaten their herds.

I guess they think the whole world knows about domestic animals in northern europe. This is not wild animals we are talking about, then it makes some sort of sense, right.

I don't understand how this was going to work? Was the plan to paint every year them all every year? I am not very familiar with reindeer but don't they shed the antlers every year like whitetail? So for most of the year they don't have antlers or they are growing them and they are covered with a soft velvet and only harden and scrap off the velvet layer on tress right before breading season. They fight and breed then shed thier antlers. You would have a very short window after they scrape thier velvet to paint and it would only be good for a 3-5 months at most. Granted at least for whitetail most of the accidents happen during the breeding season (like humans, male deer can be pretty reckless when it comes time to mate)

> Anne Ollila, chairwoman of the Reindeer Herders Association

These seem to be either domesticated or herded on certain territories by natives. So spray painting a herd may not be as hard as it sounds.

From https://reindeerherding.org/world-reindeer-herders

> The Association of World Reindeer Herders is a voluntary civil society organization for all the 24 different nomadic indigenous peoples who make a living from reindeer herding across 10 nation-states in the circumpolar north, formally founded during the 1st World Congress of Reindeer Herders in 1997.

Sure, give it a shot!

Reindeer are the only deer where the male and female both grow antlers, so it could help.

But… antlers fall off and regrow the next year, so you’d have to keep repainting…

Also, when the males rut, they tend to scrape their antlers on trees, so that’s probably not good for keeping paint on the antlers. Bonus! Finnish drivers will likely be able to see reflective trees and avoid them!

Another approach could be to have wildlife camera all around and when you detect a deer on cam, show special signals on the road.

The reindeer is not randomly showing up out of the forest. They are herded. The people herding them is putting up plenty of signs. But the reindeers are not on the actual road the whole time so people stop bothering about the signs. And some just drive really fast and realize too late that the warning signs in the cars manual that says "This function does not stop the physical laws from working." might be correct.

The raindeer is not affraid of cars, they just stand there doing nothing until they get hit. It might be a big herd with hundreds of animals on the road and another thousand in the surrounding forest so not much place to run either.

It is a good idea, but how ?

I believe deer loose their antlers every year. Painting thousands of deer every year seems impossible.

Or are the referring to deer that are being herded ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer_herding

Yes, they are livestock. The amount of wild reindeer in finland is a rounding error compared to herded reindeer.

Sounds like a job for AI and a HUD. We have deer in my area. I need something. I drive slowly but k owing when they’re around would be helpful.

Deers also shed their antlers yearly...so who's maintaining this?

Looks like the Regal Ancestor Spirit from Elden Ring, lol.

Won't that also make them trivial to hunt?

Illegal to hunt domestic animals.

Is finland still doing this?

No, it was a test for a year and deemed a failure.

(2014)

Won't that make them prime target for predators? Wolves also love to munch. And a lighthouse proclaiming dinner is here won't be helping their chances of survival either.

> Latest estimates indicate 32–38 wolf packs and 18–25 pairs of wolves in Finland as of March 2021. [0]

> Finnish Lapland has a reindeer population of about 200,000. That’s 20,000 more reindeer than people! [1]

[0] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/news-in-brief/19376-fin...

[1] https://www.lapland.fi/visit/meet-reindeer-ailo/year-of-the-...

Do wolves have a light source or what are the antlers reflecting in this scenario?

Moonlight, streetlights

We should genetically modify some males to glow in the dark, much like how we neuter mosquitoes by using a few modified males.

/s

Ok. What is the problem? I seem to have personal downvoting team following me around.

Are you saying that people intentionally strike reindeer with their automobiles?

That sounds far-fetched to me, but I could also see it as a form of dangerous poaching.

People do it out of spite. We have similar problems with the white population hating the Sami similar to what USA has had with Indians. There were cases just outside of Umeå close to the winter rally where some raindeers were killed. [0]

The drivers feel that the Sami puts the reindeer on the road to be in the way and cash in on the money they get for the killed raindeers. (Secret tip: It's not enough to be worth it to watch your domestic animals die in your hands or be forced to finnish them off yourself because the owner are forced to take care of the dead animals.)

[0] https://swedenherald.com/article/three-reindeer-killed-linke...

> We have similar problems with the white population hating the Sami

What does "white" mean to you?

It seems pretty clear that the Sami are white:

https://www.ecowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/12813432...

https://www.ecowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/39091306...

https://atmos.earth/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/sami-people-E...

https://atmos.earth/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/sami-people-0...

The indigenous Sami does have white skin, but they have a different ancestry compared to "regular"/other Scandinavians. They were for a long time legally forbidden from expressing their culture and religion, and are still harassed by individuals and groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_S%C3%A1mi

No. Swedish Sami are almost all whitehaired Scandinavians. Famously depicted longnoses like Peter Stormare in the movies.

In 1800 Sweden and Norway made it impossible to follow herds around in Nomadic Style so they all escaped to Finland and Russia.

The "Sami" you see today are Swedes who adopted the lifestyle when certain restriction were lifted and Reindeer-herding become monopoly of Sami. Declaring Samines was just a formality.

All nordic "Sami" oppose DNA-testing, as they clearly are very different from real Sami living in Russia.

Erh What? You are obliged to kill an injured animal. So you just break a leg and remove all owner's markings, if nobody saw the accident.

Fur is €300 and canned meat is €10 / 100 grams. So 50 kilo reindeer is eventually worth over €5000.

There is some misunderstanding about Reindeer's legal status and civil rights, especially in Finland. Learn from Grok:

Yes, anybody can own a reindeer in Finland, but there are important regulations to follow. Reindeer herding is a traditional livelihood, particularly for the Sámi people, and is heavily regulated, especially in the northern Reindeer Husbandry Area (covering about 36% of Finland). Here’s a breakdown: Private Ownership: You can own a reindeer as a private individual, similar to owning other livestock. There are no explicit laws prohibiting non-Sámi or non-residents from owning reindeer, but practical and legal considerations apply.

Reindeer Husbandry Area: In this designated region (mostly Lapland), reindeer herding is managed by the Reindeer Herders’ Association. If you want to keep reindeer here, you must coordinate with local herding cooperatives, as grazing lands are shared. Unauthorized herding can disrupt communal practices.

Outside the Reindeer Husbandry Area: South of this area, you can keep reindeer on private land (e.g., as pets or for tourism), but you need permission from the local agricultural authority, as reindeer are considered livestock under Finnish law.

Practical Challenges: Reindeer require specific care (e.g., grazing land, protection from predators). Without experience or infrastructure, it’s challenging to keep them. Most owners are part of herding cooperatives due to the animals’ semi-wild nature and migratory needs.

Legal Requirements: You must register reindeer with authorities, mark their ears for identification, and comply with animal welfare laws. The Finnish Food Authority oversees livestock regulations.

Cultural Sensitivity: Reindeer herding is central to Sámi culture. Non-Sámi owning reindeer, especially for commercial purposes, can be sensitive if it competes with traditional herding.

If you’re considering owning a reindeer, you’d need to: Check if you’re in the Reindeer Husbandry Area and contact the local cooperative.

Secure land and permits.

Ensure you can meet the animal’s needs.

For specific guidance, contact the Reindeer Herders’ Association (Paliskuntain yhdistys) or local agricultural authorities. If you want me to search for real-time information or analyze related content (e.g., from X or the web), let me know!

>€10 / 100 grams

Really? That's roughly equivalent to $50/pound! I understand that may change from region to region, but that seems ten times too expensive.

Canned meats outside most generic beef and pork products in style of luncheon meat are surprisingly expensive. Probably just not enough scale, even if they store well.

A 200g can of reindeer meat costs 15 €. In Rovaniemi. Add transport and tariffs.

I accidentally bought frozen reindeer meat while living in Norway about 15 years ago, though I think I only paid about 300kr / 30€ for a 1-2kg pack. Tasted quite good in a lasagne!

They make tasty snacks.

Worth risking insurance premiums going up or potential physical harm as well ?

Grill guards are a common sight in rural areas. I have known a few people of questionable moral character who have no issue aiming for deer/elk on the road and processing the meat themselves. https://a.co/d/d86EVHD

You better have a high car then, elks are big. You just end up pushing the legs away and the heavy part goes into your lap through the windshield.

That grill would work unless the deer gives a tiny hop - as they tend to do - and goes right into your windshield