The reindeer herding year starts 1 April and ends 31 March next year. At the end of each reindeer herding year, all individuals holding a reindeer herding license report how many animals they had at the start and the end of that year, how many calf they marked (early recruitment), and how many animals they consider lost due to lynx, wolverine, golden eagle, brown bear and wolf. Additionally, the slaughter houses report how many individuals that have been slaughtered and the weight of all individuals that have been slaughtered.

A number of studies have documented that losses are affected by both predation and food limitation. Here we examine how losses sought compensated for due to large carnivores, the number of calves marked per female, and population dynamics , are affected by reindeer abundance, herd body condition, environmental conditions, and lynx and wolverine abundance.

We use average body mass of calves slaughtered in the previous year to index herd body condition. MODIS EVI data are used to index environmental conditions. Information pertaining to the abundance of large carnivores is obtained from the Norwegian Large Predator Monitoring Program at Rovdata.

Here, you can examine which of the factors described above that are most important to explain the losses deemed due to large carnivores. The analyses are based on all available data since 2000 and onwards.