“The mingling of reindeer with the main caribou herds should be avoided. Reindeer herds maintained in close contact with migrating caribou suffer frequent losses through strays. Already the domestic reindeer are mingling with the caribou herd of Mount McKinley National Park. . . . [Hybridization] would be regrettable in interior Alaska, which has produced a splendid type of wild caribou, coming near at least to being the largest on the continent.” (Murie, 1935: 7.)
Murie’s extensive experience with these animals in Alaska has led him to remark further (1939: 245):
“The greatest hazard to the Caribou is the possible occupation of the range by man’s agricultural activities. . . . The most serious danger is introduction of domesticated Reindeer on wild Caribou range, for the wild herds must be removed in order to make possible the safe herding of the domestic animals. . . . There is not room for both of these animals on the same or closely adjacent ranges.”
Porsild points out (1943: 386, 389) that sparsely covered grazing areas are suitable for Caribou but not for Reindeer; and that the former disappear before expanding Reindeer culture.
“Perhaps the worst threat of all to the caribou has been the introduction of reindeer culture along the arctic coast. This has resulted in interbreeding between the wild caribou and their inferior domesticated relatives. When and if this mixture extends to all the herds of the Barren Grounds, the caribou may be written off the record as a pure species; the animal will have become extinct through dilution, as the biologists express it.” (Harper, 1949: 239.)
The American Society of Mammalogists, at its annual meeting in 1950, passed the following resolution (Jour. Mammalogy 31 (4): 483, 1950):
“That the American Society of Mammalogists urges that the Canadian Government not undertake the introduction of reindeer into Ungava. Before any introduction even is seriously considered, those persons involved in any planning are urged to make a thorough study beforehand of the problems of integrating lichen ecology, reindeer biology, and native culture—serious problems that have not been solved to date on any workable scale on the North American continent. It would be particularly deplorable if an introduction, to aid the natives, led to early successes and high hopes, then eventual failure.”
Porsild, who knows the Reindeer thoroughly at first hand, has made (1951: 53) the following observation:
“Thus far these experiments [at introduction into America] have met with only partial or indifferent success, because reindeer nomadism is incompatible with present trends of cultural development and because the North American Arctic is too thinly populated to provide a ready market for reindeer products.”
Referring to the region of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska, Rausch says (1951: 190):