More than 300 reindeer in Norway were killed in a lightning strike that felled an entire herd in a rare mass death that experts said was unprecedented in the Scandinavian country.
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Aerial footage shows reindeer carcasses scattered across a small area of the Hardangervidda mountain plateau, a national park where Europe’s largest her of some 10,000 wild reindeer roam freely.
The animals were huddled together on the Hardangervidda plateau during a storm.
“We have never experienced such numbers before”.
In Germany earlier this year, more than 70 people were hospitalized after a lightning strike at a rock festival.
NNI officials were flown into the remote area to gather samples from the reindeer. Then we will know for sure how the animals died, said Nylend.
The eerie scene was discovered during a routine inspection by the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate.
He told The Local, “We’ve heard about animals being struck by lightning and killed, but I don’t remember hearing about lightning killing animals on this scale before”.
The dead reindeer were still on site Monday.
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It’s not the first time a large herd of animals have been killed by lightning. While the agency usually does not remove animals when they die in the wild, it is now considering other options because of the large numbers, Knutsen said. In 2005, 68 cows were killed in Australia by a single bolt, according to a report by CNN.
