A clandestine emigration which poses a problem. And yes, “for reindeer too, it is strictly forbidden to cross the border to Russia”, recalled the Norwegian Directorate of Agriculture in a press release. Faced with this problem, the Norwegian authorities are going to renovate a fence near the Russian-Norwegian border in the Far North, in order to prevent reindeer escapades on the Russian side, which are not without cost.
If you did not know, precisely in order to prevent deer intrusions, a fence exists on the Norwegian side, on 150 of the 198 km of the border separating the Scandinavian country from Russia. But some sections dating from 1954, the obstacle has become a real sieve over time.
50,000 crowns per head
However, since the beginning of the year, 42 Norwegian deer have ventured across the border to graze in Russia’s Pasvik Zapovednik National Park. Each time, the Russian authorities claim around 50,000 crowns (more than 4,300 euros) in reparations and the animals are slaughtered on their return to Norway to prevent any recurrence. The Directorate of Agriculture has therefore commissioned a company to build by October 1 a new fence over a section of seven km for 3.7 million crowns.
Raised by the Sami populations, an indigenous community of northern Europe, reindeer are semi-nomadic animals that migrate over vast spaces between summer pastures and winter pastures. In this region of the Arctic, Norway and Russia have only one authorized crossing point to cross from one country to another by land, the Storskog-Boris Gleb border post.