One-hundred-and-forty reindeer have plunged to their death in Lappland in northern Sweden, possibly having been chased off a cliff by a single lynx, reindeer herders said on Tuesday.
“About 140 reindeer have been killed,” said Olof Tomas Labba, of the Tuorpons Sami town that owns the reindeer.
“It’s a massacre. I have never seen anything like this,” town spokesperson Nils Petter Pavval told local paper Norrlaendska Socialdemokraten, adding that the reindeer had been grazing when something frightened them.
“It was a lynx that chased and frightened the reindeer off the cliff. Reindeer have a sixth sense, they know the cliffs and overhangs and thin ices. They don’t just rush off a cliff of their own free will, but must have done this in panic when a predator hunted them,” he added.
According to Labba, the reindeer had been valued at about 300 000 kronor (R264 000). — AFP