The Forest Reindeer: Extinction, Recovery, Decline The Forest reindeer, Rangifer tarandus fennicus, is a subspecies of reindeer. Once common in Finland, it was hunted to extinction in the end of the 19th or early 20th century. Conservation efforts, focussed on the few individuals that dispersed back to Finland from Russia, have allowed for a re-establishment of this subspecies in Finland, divided into two isolated sub-populations (Kuhmo and Ostrobothnia). Forest Reindeer (Ra