Talk:Reindeer hunting in Greenland

Title change without discussion or consensus

 * Largely copied from User talk:Howpper

User:Howpper, I see you moved, without any form of discussion, the article I created eleven years ago. It was Reindeer hunting in Greenland. Never before has anyone seriously questioned the title. Danes and "Greenlanders" love the article. Discussion before such a controversial move would have been IS the right thing to do. The only question about terminology, and clarification, offered is found in the archives [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Reindeer_hunting_in_Greenland/Archive_1#The_more_times_I_read_this_article_I...... here. Read the last sentence]: "Caribou is usually used in North America excluding Greenland, and reindeer for Eurasia, domesticated or not.Editor abcdef (talk) 06:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)"

You may not realize this, but in Greenland the deer are only referred to as "rensdyr" (reindeer). English and scientific literature is probably what's confused you because it tries to translate from Danish, but since there are two words in English (and only one in Danish), they often get confused and don't consistently use the "right" words in the "right" places, pretty much like English speakers also do. In fact, they will often write "wild reindeer" instead of "caribou".

It really depends on whether it's a North American or someone from somewhere else who does the writing. Therefore you're placing far too much weight on a dubious distinction in words. I suspect it's possible to find articles and scientific literature which could be used to bolster each view. I chose the term used in Greenland, since the article is about Greenland, and nowhere else. We shouldn't use North American terms and distinctions, unless referring to North American conditions and animals in North America.

Only in North America is there some sense of consistent usage of the two words. Otherwise, everything east of Canada (from Greenland, to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Siberia) are ALL referred to as "reindeer". (The North American distinction between tame or wild is lost.) All of the ones we hunted in SW Greenland (there are almost no others in the country) were reindeer (there isn't much difference genetically). Nearly all the naturally occurring deer died out and the ones brought from Norway have interbred with the few remaining. Just sayin'...

I've shot 16, and there could be slight differences between animals shot one mile apart, so the interbreeding doesn't seem to be complete, IOW most are reindeer, not caribou. Most of the ones I shot had wet snouts, just like cows. They are "wild reindeer", and about as tame as cows. I've shot deer that were less than 20 feet away. They're very curious.

To top it off, (a bit of humor here) according to the Danes, Santa's Reindeer (not caribou) come from Greenland, and I shot Rudolph in 1990, as the third out of four deer that day. All sightings since then are of imposters. (I know, I know, you don't have to say it.... Santa actually lives at the North Pole (out on the ocean ice), so he must get his reindeer from Greenland, the nearest source of the animals. He also uses his office in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, where he answers all those letters from children. The mailbox there is huge. )

Anyway, something to think about. My main point is that we don't move articles here without discussion. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:09, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Response about Caribou Hunting in Greenland page

 * Moved from my User talk:BullRangifer

If you read the sources I'm pretty sure you'll see why I changed the name. In the sources, it is made clear that in Greenland, Reindeer and Caribou refer to two different things. What they would call reindeer in Greenland usually refers to a now-extinct eastern subspecies. NOTE: They also refer to domestic Rangifer tarandus brought over from Europe as reindeer.

Howpper (talk) 07:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Your last sentence is my whole point. Those are practically the only reindeer in Greenland. The ancient native caribou, which originally migrated from Canada, died out and were replaced in modern times by imported semi-domestic reindeer, mostly from Norway. There are very few of the original, if any, left, and they have interbred with the imported reindeer. The reindeer one hunts in Greenland all descend from those brought from Norway. In this instance, it is the geography (everywhere east of North America), language (Danish - caribou is not a word they have), and customs, which dictate what they are called. They are called "rensdyr", which is the same as "reindeer". -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Please read all of the sources. The eastern subspecies is what died out, not the western subspecies. The problem here is The North American Caribou and the Eurasian Reindeer are subspecies of the same species. There are genetic differences, so to call wild caribou in Greenland reindeer would be taxonomically incorrect. As you can see in one of the sources, even the government of Greenland refers to them as Caribou in English. Please see the distribution map on the Wikipedia page for Reindeer. What is your opinion on calling the page Caribou and Reindeer hunting in Greenland? I feel like this would be a more accurate title since the wild herds are Caribou, and most (if not all) of the imported herds are reindeer (keep in mind the genetic differences). Howpper (talk) 09:22, 14 June 2018 (UTC)


 * This discussion should be happening on the article's talk page, so I'll move this whole section there and we can continue there. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The genetic differences aren't really the point. "Common name" is the point. In North America, a difference is made, not based on species, but on "wild" or "not wild". The exact same species can be called one or the other depending on their "wild" status, with nearly all being called "caribou" (because very few are tame), yet "common name" favors "reindeer", so we use that name for the title of Reindeer, which is about both caribou and reindeer. In Eurasia, that distinction is lost, and naming traditions in Greenland come from Denmark and Norway. Tame and wild are all called reindeer.

As I've mentioned, if one only looks at scientific and other literature, one could make a case for either term, since both are used when referring to the deer in Greenland, but that's often a translation situation, with confusion reigning and much inconsistency. It often depends on who is doing the writing. North Americans will tend to be consistent and use both terms, depending on the "wildness" status, and in the process they may ignore that practically all the wild reindeer (caribou), IOW nearly all rangifer tarandus in Greenland, descend from imported "tame" reindeer, not from caribou. Since they have become wild, North Americans will call them caribou, but Danes, Norwegians, and Eurasians will usually call them reindeer, especially in common speech, because they don't have the word caribou in their own languages, but they do have the word "rensdyr", which equates with reindeer. They don't give a hoot whether the animals are tame or wild.

Our naming convention at Wikipedia for rangifer tarandus was established by consensus after long discussions at Talk:Reindeer. There it was decided that in general we call them reindeer, except when referring to specifically named species which use the term caribou, and in North America a number of them are so named. East of Canada that distinction is lost. There they are all reindeer, regardless of species or wildness. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 14:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

We should restore the original title
Rebooting this and seeking a resolution. Titles here follow certain rules, especially WP:COMMONNAME. Let's take a look at what is the most common name used in Greenland and when referring to rangifer tarandus in Greenland. Is it "caribou" or "reindeer"? As explained above, there is only one word in Danish, "rensdyr", which is translated "reindeer". What does Google tell us about the most commonly used term in English? A clear geographical difference becomes apparent:


 * Reindeer: 1,110,000 results. Greenland reindeer -caribou
 * Caribou: 382,000 results. Greenland caribou -reindeer

To demonstrate the geographical difference in terminology, here are searches related to Canada, ergo North America. The results are very different, with "caribou" used quite a bit, but still favoring "reindeer":


 * Reindeer: 14,300,000 Canada reindeer -caribou
 * Caribou: 13,500,000 results Canada caribou -reindeer

The most commonly used term in Greenland (AND Canada) is clearly "reindeer". That's why we have an article entitled Reindeer, not Caribou.

I believe we should restore the old, very well-established, eleven year old title, Reindeer hunting in Greenland -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:09, 14 June 2018 (UTC)


 * The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has a rather precise method of dealing with the terminology, which is what we follow on our Reindeer article, and which was also followed here:
 * "The world’s Caribou and Reindeer are classified as a single species Rangifer tarandus. Reindeer is the European name for the species while in North America, the species is known as Caribou. Here we use either name or Rangifer."
 * Greenland is classified as part of Denmark, ergo Europe, and the terminology used there is European, hence the reason they are known as reindeer in Greenland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, etc. We should restore the original title. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

✅ Original title restored. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)