Barren-ground caribou in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA

© Design Pics/Danita Delimon

Info. Barren-ground caribou in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA

Most visitors to Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska come to see the 'big five' mammals that live here: grizzly bears, moose, wolves, Dall sheep and caribou like this small group walking along a ridge. These are barren-ground caribou, a subspecies of the reindeer found across the arctic range of North America to western Greenland. Barren-ground caribou migrate in large herds, some travelling over 1,000 kilometres in a season between their summer and winter ranges. But the Denali herd, which includes around 3,000 animals, usually stay on the park’s 2.4 million hectares. There’s a good reason for this – it is the only barren-ground caribou herd in North America of such a large size class that is currently not hunted.