Reindeer Roam Free

These gentle creatures are at home in Scotland once more

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IT all sounds quite simple. In1947, Swede Mikel Utsi paidhis first visit to Scotland, and the Cairngorms reminded him of reindeer pastures in Lapland. Five years later, he and his wife Ethel Lindgren reintroduced reindeer to Scotland.

This is how the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre was born and how Utsi’s legacy lives on, with 150 reindeer now roaming the slopes above Loch Morlich. They are the UK’s only herd of free-ranging reindeer living in a natural environment.

Few animals can live on this sub-zero tundra in the depths of winter, but the hillsides north-east of the Chalamain Gap provide all the vegetation they require.