Iceland: Reindeer in the East Iceland
Iceland is not known for land wildlife, but it’s in every Iceland explorer’s bucketlist to try and spot the elusive reindeer. They live only in the eastern Iceland and often in high mountains and inaccessible valleys. But as always we got super lucky and saw reindeer 4 times along the East Fjords drive, totaling 89 animals! Reindeer were introduced to Iceland in 1771 from Norway and were supposed to get domesticated. This didn’t happen and they all escaped and became feral. The herds struggled to survive on the island as cold weather, harsh winters, frequent volcanic eruptions, and volcanic soils produced no lichen. In 1939 the reindeer were declared extinct in Iceland, but a herd of about a 100 was found in the subsequent years in the remote part of East Iceland. Today, there are about 7000 of them, and about 1000 are hunted annually to control the population.
