Finland is a dangerous place for reindeer to be in the winter. In a place where it’s dark most of the day, these beasts blend in with their surroundings, making it hard for drivers to see them. So Finnish herders are getting creative.
Members of the Finnish Reinder Herders’ Association are spraying the reindeers with a reflective coating that makes them glow in oncoming cars’ headlights. Hopefully, if the drivers can see the reindeer in the road, they won’t hit them and cause an accident that’s potentially fatal to both the reindeer and the people in the car.
They’re currently experimenting with spraying the coating on the horns and on the reindeer’s bodies to see which is more effective.
The idea of outfitting reindeer with reflective devices has been around in Scandinavia for years. There, reindeer are bred and kept on farms much like cows are in the United States. So the reflectors aren’t just helping keep the reindeer safe, they also help herders keep track of their animals. However, as car accidents involving reindeer have been on the rise, the Finnish herders are taking it to the next level with this new coating idea.
Now all those beasts need are flak jackets, Uzis, and the ability to walk upright, we’d have a reindeer army, capable of fighting off any foreign invaders. Or at least they’d scare them to death. [YLE via Reddit]