Paper short abstract:

This paper is about encounters between ways of measuring the effects of the overlap between reindeer and wind turbines, by my participation in initiatives to understand herded reindeer selection of habit amidst human disturbance.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about encounters between ways of measuring how reindeer move and respond to wind turbines. Inspired by the salient literature on data, multispecies co-existence, and context, in STS and Anthropology, I take ethnographic insights from my collaboration with experts and published literature reviews and reports as my empirical site. My entry point are the contingencies of the encounters emerging in the field (e.g. conflict, assimilation, co-existence, mutual indifference, separation etc.). In Norway, impact assessments focusing on the before-after approach and relevant variables from established literature and quantitative data, without the influence of affected collectives, have documented herded reindeer grazing by wind farms and powerlines. In Sweden, collaborative impact assessments have questioned habituation as not unequivocally good for reindeer. In collaboration, while ecological scientists worked with the notion of cumulative impacts, herders' practices centered on the notion of grazing peace and their classification of winter conditions included a gradient between accessible and blocked lichen pastures. Herders were concerned that snow-blocked pastures push reindeer towards other sources of stress, and about the growing need for artificial feeding and intensive herding restricting free-ranging. What best explained the presence of reindeer near the turbines in the statistical models was not the presence of the turbines alone, as an attractor, but the avoidance of an area of lichen grounds blocked by poor snow conditions in the lower valley region. They reported the notion of increased tolerance to modernizing stressors describing nuanced reindeer behaviors and performing the differentiation of measuring practices and collectives.