Hounds from Lapland are having trouble finding thousands of reindeer that have escaped as the warmer weather has left the food they graze under a layer of ice.
Some reindeer have traveled as far as 100 kilometers to the south, in search of ice-free lichens that they can reach under the snow.
The pursuers have to search for them in the forests of northern Finland and Sweden, some even with the help of helicopters.
Scientists say the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world as a result of climate change.
It is said that a layer of ice is formed when early snow melts or is immediately followed by rain, which creates wet snow, which then freezes into a solid layer of ice as soon as it cools down.
"Reindeer can't break through the ice because it's solid, so they move in search of land with only snow that they can easily remove and eat the lichens underneath," says Jouko Kumpula, a senior scientist at Finland's Natural Resources Institute.
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Reindeer hunting is the main source of income for many members of the Sami people in the Lapland region, which includes the arctic regions of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia's Kola Peninsula.
"For us, it's an all-day action - day and night," says Tomas Seva, a 62-year-old hound in northeastern Sweden.
"We drive for hours and hours to find our reindeer and bring them back, but it's very difficult for us in these winter conditions.
And that's why we also use helicopters, which is extremely unusual - and very expensive."
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Tomas Seva says that in the last few days, about 8.000 reindeer have wandered from his and the nearby village, many of which have traveled unusually long distances.
Sometimes they got mixed up with other herds.
"And that's why separating them from other herds and bringing them back is a huge job, we're really under a lot of pressure."
The Swedish Reindeer Association said several districts in the north-east of the country were affected - and the same problem occurred across the border in Finland.
"The farthest our reindeer have gone that I know of is about 100 kilometers from our district," says Vili Kurki (28), a hound from the Muonio district in Finland.
"Reindeer from the central part of the district moved to the south, and then in the central part we saw new reindeer that arrived from the north.
It was kind of a flow of animals."
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Some of the reindeer wear GPS trackers, but they don't always work, and even when they do, the animal with the tracker may have become separated from the rest of the herd.
"And that's why it's the most reliable way to follow tracks in the snow," says Anna Karin Svensson from the Swedish Reindeer Association.
"But the wind, deep snow and new snow make it difficult."
Willi Kurki says it takes days or even weeks to find all the missing reindeer and bring them home.
"All that work involves a lot of driving, and when fuel is expensive, it costs us all a lot."
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Scientists say that such events, when winter pastures in Lapland become difficult to graze, have become more frequent in recent years.
"Just two years ago, winter conditions were very difficult and harsh for reindeer and their hounds in all three Nordic countries," says Finnish researcher Jouku Kumpula.
"This type of winter used to happen once every thirty years, but it seems they are becoming more frequent now because of climate change."
Reindeer would disappear even then, he says.
Some would starve until they were found and suffer from digestive disorders.
Mati Sarkela of the Finnish Reindeer Association says there is a reason why the animals travel south.
"As the temperature starts to warm up after the early snow, reindeer these days lift their noses to sniff the direction from which the warm air is coming.
"And that's usually from the south - we call it 'warm weather from the UK' - and so the reindeer start moving with the warm wind and travel south."
Some Lappish hounds started giving the animals extra food, hoping to solve the problem.
"They are free-foraging animals in nature so they often try to find food on their own.
However, the frequency of ice cover over the winter vegetation is increasing and therefore the hounds have started to feed these animals in the winter," says Professor Ojstin Holland from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
"They feed them hay and other supplemental food during the winter so that the animals don't have to wander off in the winter to find food."
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