What was unusual about this storm is it left more than 300 reindeer for dead.
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“It’s not uncommon for cattle or horses to be killed in large numbers [by lightning], but I’ve never seen anything close to that”, said Dwyer, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire and is one of the world’s leading lightning experts.
Television footage showed the animals’ dead bodies lying close together on the ground. Nylend said a team of eight took samples that will be researched at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.
According to Knutsen, it is unknown whether one strike killed the reindeer, or if it was multiple strikes. “It depends upon how much current was flowing during the strike”, he said. This is the first time that such a death has been recorded on such a large scale.
When lightning hits, you’d have to be extremely unlucky to be the “primary flash channel” into which all its electricity is funnelled, but animals are often felled by a ground current, where the electricity races either towards or branches out from the flash channel.
As Knutsen explained to Henrik Pryser Libell at The Times, something called chronic wasting disease – a contagious neurological disorder related to mad cow disease – had been detected in reindeer in southern Norway back in March.
“That’s why it’s possible for the lightning to kill so many”, he said.
Knut Nylend, an official with the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (NNI), was conducting a routine inspection of the area when he stumbled upon the dead reindeer.
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“So an animal like a reindeer could be more easily killed”, said Dwyer, who believes step voltages were the likely mechanism for last week’s event. Because reindeer huddle together during storms, the animals were found contained in an area just 50 to 80 metres (164 to 262 feet). “This event really shows how risky lightning is”.
