The Shadow
The lightning strike that instantly killed 323 wild reindeer, including 70 calves in Aug. of 2016, has only served to thin Norway’s largest wild reindeer population in Europe.
Killed by the lightning strike’s “ground currents” as the reindeer were circled on a hillside in Norway’s remote Hardangervidda National Park during a storm, all 323 were killed instantaneously by cardiac arrest.
Three kinds of lightning strikes can kill humans and animals, and the “ground currents” from lightning strike remain the most deadly of the three, the other two being from “side flash” and “wall conduction.”
In a “side flash” lightning strike, a person or an animal that is standing under or close to a tree can be killed by the transference of the electricity running through the tree to the person or animal.
However, the jump from the tree to the living being is not as deadly as the electricity in “ground currents” that spread over a wide range, turning the earth into a killing field.
Sheep and cattle are the two leading victims of lightning strikes, and one lightning bolt according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration killed 654 sheep.
“Wall conduction” occurs when lightning strikes an outside electrical line that leads inside. The electricity from the lightning strike rides the outside line into the interior of the structure, resulting in death or injury or destruction of electrical appliances such as televisions, but less deadly results for humans and their pets than electrical “ground currents.”
As for how far electrical “ground currents” travel after a lightning bolt strikes, it depends upon the strength of the lightning strike and the makeup of the terrain around which it strikes, some substances being better conductors of electricity than others.
Water is one of the most dangerous conductors of electricity from lightning strikes, and lifeguards immediately clear swimming areas at the approach of a thunderstorm.
The “Guinness” record for the number of sheep killed by a single lightning strike stands at 68, and the national yearly average for people killed by lightning strikes in the U.S. has fallen from 300-400 yearly during the 1930s and 1940s to a 31-per-year average during the past decade.
As for Hardangervidda National Park, it is Norway’s largest national park, spreading 1,321 square miles from Numedal and Uvdal in the east to Rovelseggi and Ullensvang in the west across the Hardanger Mountain Plateau.
Norway established the park in 1981, designating half of the largest plateau in Northern Europe as a protected area for wildlife, including Europe’s largest herd of wild reindeer.
