More than 300 wild reindeer were killed by lightning in Norway in what wildlife officials are calling an unusually large natural disaster, reported The New York Times.
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Lightning has apparently killed some 323 reindeer in Norway, according to the country’s Environment Directorate. Because reindeer huddle together during storms, the animals were found contained in an area just 50 to 80 metres (164 to 262 feet). So when a lightning bolt hit the area, all the reindeer were affected.
Knutsen said five reindeer were still alive when the inspector came across the scene, but they had to be euthanized.
So how could something like this happen?
“We have not heard about such numbers before”, he said Monday. “We don’t know if it was one or more lighting strike; that would only be speculation”.
Norwegian Nature Inspectorate officials collected samples from the reindeers’ bodies to determine exactly how they died.
In contrast, the world’s biggest lightning hot spot, Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, gets struck more than 232 times per square kilometer in an average year-and endures nighttime thunderstorms 297 days of the year.
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.
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The animals lived on a mountain plateau in central Norway called the Hardangervidda. “This is very large”, Knutsen said.
