Top 12 Facts About Reindeer

Did you know that reindeer, also known as caribou, travel upward of 1,000 miles with their herds during their annual migration? While reindeer can’t actually fly like Rudolph, they’re magical in many other ways. Keep reading to find out our favorite facts about reindeer and how you can help reindeer!

Five Fast Facts About Reindeer:

• Reindeer eat mosses, herbs, ferns, grasses, shrubs, and trees.
• They are great travelers and will roam hundreds of miles in big herds.
• Both male and female reindeer grow antlers.
• Reindeer antlers can grow back bigger each year after they fall off.
• Reindeer swim and can cross rivers easily.

More Magical Reindeer Facts

Reindeer are social animals who live in herds ranging in size from a dozen to a few hundred:

• They use snorts, grunts, and hoarse calls to communicate. Their social groups are hierarchical, with clearly defined roles.
• When the females become pregnant, they leave the herd to travel to the same grounds year after year to give birth. This happens in spring and offers young calves the best chances to grow strong before the harsher seasons.
• Reindeer are routine-oriented. Herds often have leaders who determine the larger group’s daily rhythms of activity and rest.

Reindeer spend up to 40% of their lives in the snow and are uniquely adapted to live in the Arctic tundra and the northern parts of Europe and North America:

• Reindeers’ eyes adapt to seasonal changes in light levels, changing from a gold color in the summer to blue in the winter. Nature has essentially given them adjustable sunglasses.
• Their feet also adapt to the season. In the summer, the pads on them become spongy to adapt to walking on soft ground. In the winter, these pads tighten and shrink to compress snow to act as a snowshoe and expose the sharp rim of their hooves, which they use to crack ice as they search for food.
• They have a layer of hollow hair on top of their undercoat of soft wool. The hollow hair traps body heat to keep the animals warm and gives them buoyancy as they swim across rivers during their annual migration.
• They have hair completely covering their noses to keep them warm while they sniff out tasty mosses and fungi morsels buried in the cold snow.

Reindeer Biology—The Proof Is in the Christmas Pudding

Captive or “domesticated” reindeer are genetically no different from the reindeer found in nature and have biological drives and needs that cannot be met when they’re used for entertainment.

A recently published scholarly study looked at dozens of species of animals commonly regarded as domesticated, including reindeer, and found that apart from dogs, all species had thriving populations outside of human care. Based on these findings, the researchers assert that the domestication phenomenon is more perceived than real. They found that the term is often used loosely or misleadingly to justify keeping animals in restrictive conditions and providing them with poor welfare because they are fundamentally different from wild animals and can adapt to such conditions, but this is not true.

Did You Know That Reindeer Suffer for Christmas Events?

Reindeer suffer in many ways for holiday events. When strapped to Santa’s sleigh and used in Christmas parades, displays, other holiday events, or movies, they’re denied the opportunity to travel, forage, and socialize with others in their herd. Instead, eventgoers harass these sensitive animals with unwanted touches, handlers restrain them with halters and reins, and noisy crowds cause them stress. When they’re not being used at Christmas events, owners keep reindeer at farms, rental facilities, and roadside zoos, where handlers often neglect them and fail to provide adequate veterinary care.

After being informed about the cruelty of reindeer events, many venues have chosen to end their use of live reindeer. In 2024, venues in Colorado and Idaho nixed their plans to use live reindeer in their Christmas events after learning how reindeer are often stressed and put in danger for holiday displays.

They join a growing list of venues that have recently grown wary of exploiting animals for entertainment. A Tennessee parade and multiple home décor and hardware stores in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Oregon decided not to use reindeer in holiday displays as they had in the past, and the town of Ferndale, Michigan, banned wild-animal exhibits after it received complaints about its holiday event that used live reindeer.

How to Help Reindeer!

These facts prove that reindeer belong in nature, not as props at Christmas events, in parking lots, or in front of stores.

We’re asking supporters to urge venues to skip cruelty this Christmas by leaving live reindeer out of their holiday events: