UN INT Intro Text w/ Responsive Image - *Important Note* You must UNLINK this shared library component before making page-specific customizations.
The holiday season is a time for spreading compassionate vibes—not for exploiting sensitive reindeer at crowded and frightening events. 🎄 ❄️ 💔
Reindeer (aka “caribou”) are herd animals who can travel over 1,000 miles during their yearly migration in nature. 🦌 But when they’re strapped to Santa’s sleigh for Christmas parades, displays, or movies, they miss out on the chance to roam, find food, and socialize with their herd. Instead, these sensitive animals—who are restrained by handlers—are harassed by people through unwanted touches and stressed by loud crowds. 😰 When reindeer aren’t being used for Christmas events, their owners keep them on farms or at roadside zoos and often fail to provide them with proper care.
Denied Proper Food, Conditions, and Exercise
Reindeer can’t fly like Rudolph, but they’re magical in other ways. ✨ They’re tundra pros with hooves that act as paddles for swimming. They also have eyes that change color in different light levels and hair on their noses that keeps them warm while they’re sniffing for food.
These amazing animals have sensitive stomachs and can develop gastrointestinal diseases if their diet changes too quickly. But at some Christmas events, visitors feed them unhealthy, high-grain foods that can cause life-or-death health issues. In October 2020, a 2-year-old reindeer at a Christmas tree farm in Wales died after a visitor fed him bread and sweets. 😢
Reindeer have unique feet—their pads become spongy in the summer and shrink in the winter to expose their sharp, ice-cracking hooves. But on solid surfaces like concrete pavement at Christmas events, they slip more often—especially when they’re forced to pull a sleigh.
In nature, reindeer can climb mountains and swim across rivers. But when they’re trapped at events or roadside zoos, they usually don’t get enough exercise to build muscle and end up losing weight. When they’re kept in small spaces, their antlers can become malformed. Treating reindeer as inanimate objects, like the sleighs they’re strapped to, is straight-up speciesism—the mistaken belief that other animals are inferior to humans. 😡
Reindeer Suffer to Entertain Humans
Reindeer need proper hoof care, but some handlers neglect this basic veterinary care and let the hooves overgrow, which can cause painful diseases like arthritis. At many roadside zoos and events across the country, handlers don’t feed reindeer properly, leading them to have visible ribs and sunken hips. 😨 Other reindeer suffer from hair loss, swollen eyes, and thick discharge from the eyes and nose.
Besides having physical health issues, reindeer suffer from the emotional distress of being kept away from their herd and natural environment. This is only a snapshot of the misery these sensitive animals are forced to endure for Christmas every year.
Dangerous Conditions for Reindeer and Humans
When they’re not being used for Christmas gigs , reindeer used for entertainment typically live on farms or in rental facilities across the country. Many of these places have been cited for unsafe and unsanitary conditions, risking the health well-being of everyone in the facility. Some places were so nasty that flies were attracted to buildups of feces and covered the reindeers’ eyes. 🤢 In other cases, reindeer shelters weren’t kept clean or the animals weren’t given access to fresh water.
An exhibitor in Colorado made the dangerous decision to force incompatible reindeer to share the same space. This led to a one-year-old female named Zero being rammed so violently that her cause of death was “a large amount of internal bleeding,” and a three-year-old male named Yukon dying a day after being gored.
Keeping reindeer penned up can be dangerous for humans, too. An intern at an Illinois facility was seriously injured and had to have surgery after a reindeer pushed her against a fence and pierced her with his antlers. That reindeer, btw, only did that due to his instinctual fear of humans. This situation never would have occurred had he been left in peace in nature.
Reindeer, like all other wild animals, can become scared and act unpredictably when forced to live outside of their natural environment. A panicked reindeer at an event in Colorado escaped from a handler, ran through city streets, and swam through a reservoir before being recaptured the next night. At another event in Utah, two reindeer were hit by vehicles and killed after jumping from a trailer. 😭 This kind of gross exploitation can’t keep going down year after year!
What You Can Do
You can help end the use of reindeer in holiday displays by never going to any events with live reindeer and urging facilities to stop exploiting all live animals. ❤️ This legit works—after hearing from PETA, several businesses and cities have already made the compassionate choice to avoid using live reindeer in their displays. If there’s an event with live reindeer near you, please ask the organizers to keep them out.
Ask these venues that plan to use reindeer to reconsider their choice.