Is Rudolph Male Or Female?

12-22-2008 North Pole:

Wildlife Expert Ponders Question Of Reindeer Gender

There may be a perfectly good reason why Santa doesn't get lost on his annual Christmas globetrot: His fictional flying reindeer just might be females who don't mind stopping for directions.

The gender of Rudolph and his/her sleigh-hauling friends - the subject of goofy Internet chatter every year about this time - is now being pondered by even the renowned wildlife experts at Texas A&M University.

"Santa's reindeers were really females, most likely," said Dr. Alice Blue-McLendon, a veterinary medicine professor specializing in deer who cites the depictions of Santa's helpers with antlers as the primary evidence. It turns out real reindeer grow antlers regardless of gender, and most bulls typically shed their fuzzy protrusions before Christmas.

What's more, if Santa really has reindeer and they really are female, they might even be be hauling around tons of toys while pregnant, said Greg Finstad, who manages the Reindeer Research Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Females become pregnant during rutting season - in late summer and into the fall. These expectant mothers retain their antlers until calves are birthed in the spring. This allows them to protect food resources through harsh weather and to have enough for developing fetuses, he said.

So that would mean long hours of backbreaking work for an expecting Rudolph, as well as Donner, Blitzen, Cupid, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, and Vixen.

"You don't hook up your pregnant females to a sled," Finstad said. "That is not good animal husbandry."

Non-expectant females finish shedding their antlers in February and March, along with young steers - castrated males. Bulls generally lose theirs before Christmas.

So, steers and non-expectant females also could be Santa's sleigh helpers, Finstad said.

Real-life sledders most often use steers because they maintain their body condition throughout the winter, he said. Bulls are tuckered out from rutting season when they mate with as many as a dozen females in months leading up to December. That leaves them depleted and too lean to pull a sleigh or sled through heavy snows, Finstad said.

Other aspects of the Christmas story support the all-girl sleigh team theory as well, said Blue-McLendon, whose school will put out a lighthearted news release this week suggesting the animals were female.

For example, would a boy reindeer really sport a shiny red nose that almost glows?

"Females like accessories," said Blue-McLendon, who in 2003 led the school's cloning of a white-tailed deer. "I think that fits because females like bling. We like shiny stuff."

As for the reindeer games, forget the rough antler-smashing stuff. Blue-McLendon suggests a female Rudolph would be more up for "games of wit."

And as for the name, Rudolph could certainly still work.

"Why not?" Blue-McLendon said. "I know women named Charlie."

..News Source.. by Eyewitness News 3