August 01, 2019, 01:03 PM 
Animals have been dying en-masse this year as temperatures rise to scorching levels in certain areas.
A troop of monkeys died in India after failing to obtain water, where temperatures hit 46ºC.
In two separate incidents, Australia was so hot that dead bats began dropping out of the skies, while puffins died of starvation off the Bering sea as prey migrated to cooler waters.
And now, reindeer much higher up north have been suffering the same fate.
Starved to death by climate change
200 reindeer have been found dead in the Norwegian Archipelago of Svalbard.
The carcasses of the wild deer were found by a team of three scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) during an annual census of the animal's population, reported The Guardian on July 30, 2019.
The NPI stated that this was the first time the institute had recorded so many deaths at once in their 40 years of monitoring reindeer populations.
Winter in the Arctic occurs from October to March, and the reindeer are believed to have starved to death during that period.
And scientists have pointed their fingers towards climate change as the cause.
According to The Independent, Svalbard's capital Longyearbyen, the most northernmost town in the world, is believed to be warming the fastest as compared to any other human settlement on earth.
The warming temperatures in the region have unexpectedly led to increased rainfall. The rain then freezes, leading to a thick layer of ice.
The thick ice likely prevented the reindeer from digging through to reach the vegetation they usually graze on.
Reindeer populations declining since 20 years ago
NPI scientists also theorised that the high number of reindeer calves born last year could have contributed to the unusually high mortality, as younger and weaker individuals are generally the first to die.
Said the leader of the reindeer census, Ashild Onvik Pedersen:
“Some of the mortality is natural because there were so many calves last year. But the large number we see now is due to heavy rain, which is due to global warming.”
Arctic reindeer populations have decreased 56 per cent in the past two decades, a 2018 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed.
Without the reindeer to graze on them, unwanted and invasive plant species could spread across the Arctic tundra, an effect exacerbated by the warming climate.
Top photo from norskpolarinstitutt / IG
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