Historically, the range of the sedentary boreal woodland caribou covered more than half of Canada and into the northern states of the contiguous United States. Some subspecies are rare and two have already become extinct: the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou of Canada and the East Greenland caribou from East Greenland. After the last individual, a female, was translocated to a wildlife rehabilitation centre in Canada, the woodland caribou was considered extirpated from the contiguous United States.

The New York Times reported in April 2018 of the disappearance of the only herd of southern mountain woodland caribou in the contiguous United States with an expert calling it 'functionally extinct' after the herd's size dwindled to a mere three animals. As of January 2018, there are fewer than 9,000 animals estimated to be left in the George River herd, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. caribou) George River herd in Canada, with former variations between 28,000 and 385,000. What was once the second largest herd is the migratory boreal woodland caribou ( R. sibiricus) in Russia is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world, varying between 400,000 and 1,000,000. The Taimyr herd of migrating Siberian tundra reindeer ( R. Barren-ground caribou are also found in Kitaa in Greenland, but the larger herds are in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The migrations of Porcupine caribou herds are among the longest of any mammal. The Porcupine caribou and the barren-ground caribou form large herds and undertake lengthy seasonal migrations from birthing grounds to summer and winter feeding grounds in the tundra and taiga. pearyi) live in the tundra, while the shy boreal woodland caribou prefer the boreal forest. The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska through the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut into the boreal forest and south through the Canadian Rockies. platyrhynchus), to the largest, the boreal woodland caribou ( R. tarandus varies in size and colour from the smallest subspecies, the Svalbard reindeer ( R. Its herd size varies greatly in different geographic regions. This is the only species in the genus Rangifer. This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. The reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus), also known as caribou in North America, is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. Reindeer range: North American (green) and Eurasian (red)

Elk vs caribou