Reindeer games: A DNA test reveals the true identity of a mysterious Helsinki resident
A DNA test by a mysterious visitor from Helsinki revealed that he is even rarer than initially thought.
Earlier in January, a young reindeer was spotted on the streets of the Finnish capital, given the distance of more than 200 kilometers between the city and the nearest wildlife.
Police caught the animal and took it to the zoo for veterinary treatment. Now, DNA tests performed at the DNA Sequencing and Genomics Laboratory of the University of Helsinki have revealed that this is a really rare deer. Rangifer tarandus fennicus – rather than the more common, semi-domesticated reindeer reared in large herds in Lapland.
Nina Trontti, the director of zoo protection, tells Euronews that they have no idea how Vasa ended up in the capital.
“There is speculation about his route, and a few people took pictures of him as he was coming towards town. There are geographical features, forest plots that could take him south, ”he says.
“But this is a really unique situation to find a reindeer in Helsinki.”
The animal, named Vasas by the staff, has recovered in the last two weeks at the Korkeasaari Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Helsinki. The guards think he is less than a year old and would have already been weaned from his mother, but was quite malnourished when he was spotted in the suburban streets.
Endangered species in the wild
The red deer is an endangered species, with about 4,000 animals left in the wild. The population is scattered between Finland and Russian Karelia.
Reindeer were hunted in Finland until extinction in the early 20th century, but they gradually returned to the eastern border in the 1950s and 1970s.
For most of the year, small herds migrate together, but as calves are born, females move to more marshy areas with abundant food and shelter from predators such as wolves and bears.
Initially, zoo keepers feared that Vasa might be prone to a condition called ‘imprisonment myopathy’ in which the trauma of being imprisoned could cause serious stress injury, visceral damage or even death, but Trontti says he now is gone. danger and on the road to recovery.
“Now she’s fine. She eats a lot and sleeps a lot just like an ordinary deer, she’s fine.
In the longer term, Vasa is to be re-integrated into a managed deer breeding and restoration project that has been underway for five years.
When the treated population reaches a sustainable level, they are released back into the wild.