Conservation officers in Arviat suspect 13 caribou found dead near the community last week were killed by lightning.

The animals died within about 50 metres of each other, about 10 kilometres outside the hamlet.

Caribou killed by lightning about 10 km west of Arviat.
(Joe Savikataaq/Government of Nunavut Environment Dept.)

The hunter who found the caribou was concerned that someone had killed them and left the meat to go to waste.

But when conservation officer Joe Savikataaq went to investigate, he found the caribou had no bullet wounds.

They appeared to have died about a week earlier, just about the time there was a series of rare but severe lightning storms in the area.

Savikataaq said he believes they were hit by lightning.

"There's just no other conclusion we can come up to, because they weren't killed by humans and the odds of 13 caribou dying of a disease at one time are pretty slim," he sad. "You'd have better chance of winning [Lotto] 6-49."

He said the caribou were too decomposed to determine if there were burns or other marks to confirm a lightning strike.

Although he had never heard of lightning killing caribou before, he said he has been told it sometimes happens with cattle in the south. 

A case of caribou electrocuted by lightening in Alaska was documented in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases in 1973.