"A machine is a machine," they say at the local police in the Yamalo-Nenets part of Siberia. Law and order are to be maintained, but it is not always easy to patrol a vast region of tundra where the land is almost always frozen. They are equipped with snowmobiles, but motors have their limits. "A snowmobile can break down or get stuck in the tundra, but the deer will run at all times." This is why they are seriously thinking of reindeers as a substitute.

The Russian authorities wouldn't be the first to use reindeer: Finland's police uses them to patrol the forests of Lapland. Who better than those animals can perform the task?