Aatu was only a small calf when his mother abandoned him. He was found
in the woods of Savukoski, near Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland. An orphan,
he never learned how to be a regular reindeer, his owner says. He was
bottle-fed, brought up partly in a house and learned to identify with
humans rather than animals - so much so that he likes watching TV: His favorite show is the British police constable series Heartbeat.
Aatu, who lives part-time on a reindeer farm and in the yard of owner
Pia Tuukkanen's house, seems to want to be indoors with humans. He knows
how to walk carefully on the floors of the house where his owner lives,
and he has even been housebroken - well, for the most part.
Early on, local reindeer herders said that a tame reindeer would be no
good at work. But that turned out not to be the case: Aatu, now six
years old, is an active tourist guide, pulling sleighs full of visitors.
According to his owner, he is a social creature, and like a child, he
is honest, curious and trusts people.
There are some 200,000 semi-domesticated reindeer in northern Finland,
which have traditionally been herded by the indigenous Sámi people. An
adult male can weigh up to 160 kilos.
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