Counting Reindeer and bullying Hugo!

Hey beloved readers, 
Fra is back here to tell you more about our biology courses!

Today I’m here to tell you everything about some good Arctic environmental management fieldwork counting reindeers, reindeer poop and digging snow pits. With the coming of the light season, me, Mascha and Hugo finally got to go on our first snow scooter fieldwork! Light season doesn’t always equal good weather though, and obviously, we got all the bad weather we could wish for! The day before the fieldwork there was a very strong snowstorm which meant that I almost got lost on the way home which I’ve been doing twice a day for the past 8 months and which also meant that the day after, avalanche risk was quite high.  This meant that we couldn’t go to Colesdalen, where we would have counted our beloved reindeers! The professors decided to take us to Adventdalen instead, where we dug snow pits and counted reindeer poop as it was too foggy to count reindeers. 

Us three got  (Of course) the steepest transect which went straight up on a small hill full of ice and snow. The good side of it ? We got to slide and roll in the snow for a good 15min. 

 

Hugo bullying me, and Mascha filming :( 

Mascha sliding down the hills like a pro

Mascha and Me showing Hugo how to roll down the hills

The second day of fieldwork was cancelled.

The third day, again a very snowy day where you could barely see the snowmobiles in front of you, we got back to Adventdalen where we were ready to run transects in the entire valley and to count reindeers ! We were lucky, we counted 21 reindeers (apart from Hugo, he counted just 19 for some reason, maybe due to the lack of contact lenses which are taking their time to get here, and Hugo is really pissed about it, the only thing he can think about is his contact lenses… all day every day. Me and Mascha opened a go found me page called Hugo’s lenses if you can, please spare a few seconds to read about this great cause and maybe make a small donation, every little counts). 

Since Hugo was struggling already, Mascha decided to be even more mean and to stop her snowmobile and fake looking for something in a completely white spot. She even faked writing down some reindeer numbers so that Hugo would stop too and start squinting his eyes in order to spot that imaginary reindeer with his fogged up, full of ice, glasses. 

Overall, the fieldwork was quite good fun and, even though we’re not terrestrial biologists, I thought it was quite interesting to learn how Reindeer estimation counts are done. Now  to the hard part: preparing a group presentation about our findings!

Lunch break in the snow

Hugo trying to pose for a picture (while I try to ruin it)

Digging a 2m deep snow pit