Posted on November 13, 2009 under General
Caribou Movement in Alaska’s Arctic
Caribou in the Arctic Refuge

Caribou in the Arctic Refuge

Predicting caribou movements is like trying to track a ghost. Caribou migration patterns are affected by innumerable factors including distribution of quality forage, snow depth, insect abundance and hatch timing, wind direction and calf production. We love seeing the big herds streaming across the tundra and our job of planning trips to coincide with caribou movements just got a little easier. CARMA (Circum Arctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assesment Network) has produced animations of caribou movements around the arctic. By compiling satellite data from several years they have plotted the locations of adult female caribou as they move across their range. The resulting movie shows the tremendous sweeps of country they cover moving from wintering grounds south of the mountains to upland calving grounds and the frantic search for bug relief in July. Check out all of the animations here or download the Alaska movie here.