More than a hundred reindeer were killed in a single four-day period by freight trains rolling through Norway, prompting an outcry for the national railway to do more to protect animals.

In all, 110 reindeer were killed when eight freight trains plowed into herds on the tracks last week, Norway’s national railway company said. In the most serious accident, 65 reindeer were killed on Saturday when they were hit by a freight train destined for the northern town of Bodo.

“It was a blood bath,” a reindeer herder, Torstein Appfjell, 59, said in a phone interview. “I have been a herder all my life, since boyhood, and I have never ever seen anything like the scene on Saturday night.”

Mr. Appfjell said he and three other herders were notified of the accident by the railway company, Bane NOR, and arrived at the scene to find dead or dying reindeer lying across 200 to 300 yards of the railway tracks.