In photos released by the agency, the animals are visible in piles up to 100 yards apart.
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Reindeer killed by one or more lightning strikes in southern Norway last week.
The 323 reindeer, including 70 young, were found on Friday by a gamekeeper on the Hardangervidda plateau, a national park where Europe’s largest herd of some 10,000 wild reindeer roam freely.
In addition, the fact that reindeer have no safe place to retreat during an electrical storm can turn an entire herd into a target, Dwyer said. Agency spokesman Kjartan Knutsen told the Associated Press that while it’s not uncommon for reindeer or other animals to be struck by lightning, the sheer scale of this massacre is singular.
So how could something like this happen?
“It depends upon how much current was flowing during the strike”, he said.
“The energy then spreads along the ground surface, and if you’re anywhere near that lightning strike, you absorb it and get shocked”.
“That’s why it’s possible for the lightning to kill so many”, he said.
It’s the same principal at play when you see a bird sitting on a power line and not getting electrocuted – there is no potential difference because both its legs are touching the same wire at same constant potential.
So yep, with the insane amount of rain seeping into the already fast-thawing ground, those lightning rod legs, and that steadfast pack mentality, these poor reindeer had a whole lot going against them that day.
Hardangervidda, a mountain plateau in southern Norway that is popular among tourists and hikers, is known for its natural beauty.
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Lightning is wild and lovely, but also very risky – especially to reindeer, it seems. “This is very large”, Knutsen said.
