10 Fascinating Facts About Reindeer Beyond Christmas [PHOTOS]

Christmas is around the corner and the mention of reindeer is inevitable. However, for several indigenous groups of people in Siberia, Canada, Norway and elsewhere, reindeers are not just for Christmas, but an innate part of their existence.

Reports suggesting that world's reindeer population is on decline have surfaced often for the past few years around Christmas. It's needless to state that the shrinking herd size of reindeer affects the subsistence of its people. Among those suffering also include the Innu, the tribal inhabitants of Canada's Labrador and Quebec provinces, who are dependent on the world's largest herd of reindeer - caribou, popularly known as wild reindeer in North America.

According to Survival International, an organization working for tribal people's rights worldwide, industrial development projects/plants are the culprits. Here are nine other such interesting facts about reindeer and its people, besides Christmas:

1. Every autumn, hundreds of Sámi reindeer travel through the freezing waters of Norway’s Kågsundet fjord during their annual migration. It takes a week for the entire herd to swim between the summer pastures of the Arnøy island and the wintering grounds on the mainland.