When talking about caribou, most people probably think of some version of Santa Claus’s reindeer. Although real-life reindeer sadly do not exhibit any of the fantastical traits associated with helping Santa deliver gifts all over the world, caribou — their North American counterpart of the same species (Rangifer tarandus) — are in fact known to perform epic long-distance migrations.
Despite this, not everyone knows that not all caribou migrate — caribou that live in boreal forests are indeed mainly sedentary. Things can get even trickier when we consider populations in which only some caribou migrate, a phenomenon called partial migration.
