Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Norwegian driver stopped with five reindeer in car

Lapland may be the mythical home of Santa Claus and his famous hoofed hauliers, but police in the far north of Norway were astonished recently to find three live reindeer packed into the back seat of a car.

On further inspection, the confounded officers spotted two more antlered heads sticking out of the luggage compartment when they stopped the driver of a Subaru Forester. None of the animals were wearing seatbelts.



Surprised by the fuss, the man behind the wheel of the SUV said he had received clearance from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority to transport five of his reindeer from Karasjok to Børselv, a journey of some 100 kilometres.

While that claim has not yet been verified, Frank Ove Eidem, an inspector for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, gave the impression of a man who by now had seen it all. “There are no limits to what people will get up to in traffic. I’ve stopped being surprised,” he said.

5 comments:

Ratz said...

I presume the reindeer were tagged, otherwise why have they pixellated the ears?

arbroath said...

That confused me also.

I found one un-pixellated photo at Google images, but when you clicked on it, it went to a completely different photo.

Other versions I found of this image are even more pixellated.

So I have no idea.

Ratz said...

http://theforeigner.no/pages/news/norway-motorist-reined-in/ looks like the same image only very dark (and non-pixellated).

arbroath said...

Yes, I think you're right.

Insolitus said...

The reindeer have marks cut into their ears when they are young to distinguish their owner. The ears are pixellated to protect the identity of the man in question. Although I think you'd have to be another reindeer owner to actually recognise whose markings the reindeer have.