The Sami went down to South Georgia
They were looking for reindeer to kill
When does a reindeer meet a penguin?
This is not the start to a joke. One is native only to the northern Arctic regions, and the other only to the Southern Hemisphere.
And yet, this photo exists:
This photo is from 2012. It could not be taken today.
Because every single one of the reindeer on the island of South Georgia are dead. The rats are also dead. Millions of dollars, thousands of bullets and tons of poison. This is what happens when whaling, environmental destruction, and conservation come together. In an effort to help ourselves, we introduced reindeer. And in an effort to save the island, we created 7,685 kg of reindeer steak (yes really).
The island of South Georgia belongs to Britain right now (Cook landed there in 1775, and Earnest Shackleton is buried there). It’s nearly 900 miles east of the Falklands. It’s remote and ice cold, and now contains only about 20 people and an Antarctic research facility. There’s never been any Indigenous human population because it’s in the middle of dang nowhere and definitely not a fun place to live.
At least not for humans. Birds, however, find it lovely. There are petrels, pipits, sheathbills and pintails (they all look like, er, seabirds. You know the look). There are king penguins! And humans did find it useful. Especially for stopovers while whaling in the early 20th century. It has fresh water. And by the time the whalers were done, it had both reindeer and rats.
The reindeer were on purpose, because they make terrible stowaways. “Reindeer were introduced to South Georgia by Norwegian whalers in order to provide a familiar food source and to vary an otherwise limited diet. The reindeer were also a reminder of home, and hunting them provided a recreational activity.” (it should be noted that no one wants to eat penguin. It is illegal, but also tastes SO BAD).
This was a common practice during the age of sail. On board rations were…disgusting honestly. MREs are nothing to them. Weevil filled hard biscuits, dried meat. More of that. Some citrus so people didn’t die of scurvy. So many ships would set out with live animals on board. At first, those animals would get slaughtered over time for meat. But if you come across an island where you know you’ll stop for water again and again…why not drop off some rabbits? Some pigs?
Some reindeer?
Between 1909 and 1925, Norweigian whalers dropped off reindeer at two different snow-free locations on South Georgia island. From an original herd of about 16, a larger (pretty inbred, I imagine) herd grew. And for a while, they served their purpose. The sailors hunted them for meat, which kept the population down.
Until they didn’t. Whaling stopped in the 1960s (good!), which means whalers stopped arriving and hunting the reindeer (bad!). There was no management of the herds at all starting in the 1980s, and the reindeer did what they do. They ate green stuff, and they multiplied.
By 2013 there were more than 5,000 them on the island (I’ve seen more than 6,000 listed as well). The plant community couldn’t keep up, and without the plants, the soil was eroding. This created a problem for birds like petrels, which create burrows for nests. Burrows which were collapsing and also getting trodden on by hooves of hungry reindeer. There was worry that as the glaciers melted, more green space would open up, and more reindeer would survive, dooming the birds.
And so in 2013 the island flew down “ten Sami reindeer herders, four marksmen, four science assistants, a vet, a doctor and two project management staff.” The Sami are traditional reindeer herders from Norway. Their skills are unparalleled. Their goal? Kill every reindeer on the island.
They did. Nothing was wasted that didn’t have to be, the meat was sold to cruise lines and restaurants in the Falklands. By 2014 the reindeer were gone. (As a side note the names of places in South Georgia are A+. One of the eradication sites was the Barff Peninsula. LOL)
The island was saved!
Or was it.
Because without the reindeer, South Georgia began to worry about its population of RATS. Because where there are ships there are certainly rats. The rats were an even more clear and present danger to the seabirds because rats willingly eat eggs, and babies if a bird has made the honestly very derpy evolutionary choice of ground-nesting.
For this eradication, conservationists spent $13.5 million laying down poison bait, tracking rats down with dogs. Racing all over the island with sticks coated in peanut butter to find any leftover rats (give how many scientists use peanut butter in their daily work, I wonder a lot whether science is keeping Skippy afloat). The island was finally declared rat free in 2018 (though constant vigilance is required).
There are a lot of takeaways from this story, but the most present one to me is how much work and time we spend on the consequences of our actions. We humans love to leap before looking, and often consider the future consequences to a massive pile of seabirds to be remote. Whales? Whales are now. Food is now. It’s not an unreasonable way to think. But more and more often, when we make these short term decisions, we face long term consequences of our immediate needs. Our immediate greed.
It also showcases how some animals become targets when we decide we value other animals more. Rats are the most common victims of this, no one likes them, everyone hates them, native animals are always more valuable. Reindeer, however, are pretty charismatic megafauna. Had South Georgia been closer to places where tourists like to go, for example, I could see these reindeer being carefully herded into specific places, fed supplemental diets, and shown off to cruise ships for pictures with reindeer and penguins. But in this case, there is a research station, and researchers care about conserving the native fauna, which means non-native ones are inherently unwelcome. They are problematic from the get go. But the reindeer did not choose to move there. The rats didn’t choose. we did. We chose who lived there, and we chose which we cared about more. Our ideas of what is valuable biodiversity and what is a “good” animal to add to an ecosystem may not be wrong. But they are also OUR IDEAS. And those ideas can change over time. In 1909, reindeer on South Georgia were the “right” choice. In 2013, killing them all was the right choice. Perhaps we know more now. But then again, perhaps we don’t.
Sources (yes this is how many sources it often takes to write one of these)
South Georgia Island Is Officially Free of Its Bird-Killing Rodents (Smithsonian)
Government of South Georgia Eradication Projects
Government of South Georgia Environmental Documents
Fred Pearce’s “The New Wild” (An enjoyable and thoughtful book!)
South Georgia declared ‘rat-free’ in largest-ever rodent eradication program (MongaBay)
Abundance, Exploitation, Recovery: A Portrait of South Georgia (NYT)
The Saga of the Reindeer of South Georgia Island (Atlas Obscura)
PS: The conservationists were worried because the glaciers were melting, which would open up more green space for reindeer and more opportunities for rats. Those glaciers? Still melting. The future of the birds? Recovering! But still uncertain.
Where have you been?
Is it reading about how komodo dragons have iron-impregnated sharp serrated edges on their teeth?! I love this. Yes, I know many small mammals have iron-impregnated incisors (it’s why beaver, rat, and mouse teeth are such a creepy yellow color), but c’mon it’s DRAGONS.
Maybe it’s reading about how Hakai magazine is shuttering. I’m so sad to hear there. The editors there are lovely people I’ve always wanted to write for and Hakai has done beautiful work. They don’t deserve this.
Maybe it’s reading about how no, male humans cannot smell ovulation in female humans. Love a good debunking.
Or maybe it’s that Kenyans are using beehives to protect mangroves! I knew they were using beehives to protect crops from elephants, but using them to protect mangroves from poachers is awesome!
Where have I been?
First, thank you to Eva Amsen for mentioning my book, Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, in “The best books to help you notice science in surprising places”! I so appreciate it.
I got to publish a blog post at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden about pests in the garden.
“Pest” and “weed” are relational terms. Calling an animal a pest, calling a plant a weed, suggests that the creature or plant has little value in our eyes. I hate my Kevins because they are animals in a place I think of as mine. They are doing something I don’t want. They are taking something that I value.
For a word that is supposed to describe an animal, “pest” has a lot of “I” in it.
Anti-Discourse Actions
The vibes have been somewhat recovering lately, but honestly, the internet can ruin anything in 24 hours or less.
My current best anti-discourse action for me? I deleted several social media apps from my phone.
Letter writing continues apace, we are up over 200!
I voted in a recent local special election. Local elections matter. Most major candidates started somewhere, so make sure the ones you’ve got are the ones you like, or if not, the one who will engage with your concerns.
And I contacted my hyperlocal government about a safety issue! There’s an intersection a lot of pedestrians use that has a tone of vehicular traffic. It’s hard to see because there’s a big fluffy thicket of plants, and that’s kind of a safety issue. Did you know that many local governments have forms you can fill out and they’ll come trim it back! They do! And I did.
Thanks for this, I had no idea about reindeer at South Georgia. (Nor about rats, but the rats aren't surprising to me, whereas the reindeer are very surprising!)
I too didn't know about the reindeer nor the rats, so thank you!
Your 'Anti-Discourse Actions' reminds me I need to remind our local council to come and clean the footway gulleys outside our house. For some reason the footway outside eight or nine houses around us is way wider than normal, and has gulleys which do not seem to be on the regular maintenance schedule that sees the gutter gulleys cleaned. The footway is used by kids from two high schools as well as kids at a primary school and their parents who often have younger kids in pushchairs with them. Large puddles mean they tend to end up nearer the roadway, which is obviously not as safe as being further away. When there are no puddles this length of footway lets the littles range a bit farther away from the adults, and the older kids mess around before having to be careful again on the narrow footway at either end. So thank you again!