MOUNTAIN CARIBOU PROJECT

by Lawrence Redfern The BC government has indicated that later this fall it intends to make a decision about the recovery of Mountain Caribou in BC. In this article I hope to increase your interest in this issue and motivate you to take action to conserve this unique animal.

The inland temperate rainforest region of western North America reaches from about central Idaho in the south, north to Chetwynd. In BC it is often referred to as the ‘interior wet belt’. Within this unique ecosystem once roamed up to 8,000 Mountain Caribou, a globally unique caribou type. Today fewer than 2,000 remain in BC, and there are only a few individuals in the US. Mountain Caribou seek out deep snow sub-alpine environments as late winter range and using their huge hooves as snowshoes walk on the snow and feed on arboreal lichen growing on old trees. In early winter and spring caribou migrate to increasingly rare old forests for food and security. In total they make 4 migrations each year moving up and down our mountains seasonally in search of food and safety from predators.

Large wilderness-requiring animals have been driven out of much of North America as people moved in and their habitat was lost. Animals such as cougars, grizzly and black bears, wolverines, caribou and wolves have all been driven north and west by human development. In BC, the north and west corner of North America, we still have these wilderness animals. Our rugged geography and sparse population has provided these species space in areas adjacent to human settlement but separated from it by unroaded forest land and rarely traversed mountainous areas. In the past 2 or 3 decades this historic de facto wilderness has been lost to forest development and expanded commercial and resident backcountry recreation demands. (Even within BC parks, wildlife is not protected from motorized backcountry recreation impacts.)

For over 30 years biologists working for the provincial government have known that habitat change through forest harvesting was having a detrimental and potentially lethal impact on Mountain Caribou. Twenty years ago the negative impacts of motorized recreation were documented. We often hear that backcountry recreation is non-consumptive, leaving only tracks in the snow, but research shows caribou may be permanently displaced from good habitat by backcountry recreation, so recreation can essentially consume habitat by preventing caribou from using it. To date insufficient actions have been taken to address the concerns raised by the public and provincial biologists with the result that the mountain caribou population has become fragmented and overall numbers dramatically reduced.

The most recent census (released late spring 2006) provides reason for optimism about recovery work. The Hart Range herd, the largest single herd, increased from 450 to 718 animals between 2002 and 2005 (partially due to a more complete census, but also due to herd growth). In the South Selkirks it is thought that the elimination of a single cougar (that had developed a taste for caribou) has allowed that herd to increase by 21% to 41 animals over a three year period.

The factors that allowed these two herds to grow - intact habitat, low levels of disturbance, reduction in predation pressure - are within human management capability and point the direction for recovery and growth of other herds. Other techniques that have been successfully applied elsewhere, such as maternity pens and feeding programs, also offer hope that we may once again have robust populations of mountain caribou in our region. The first step in this direction is making a choice to begin to try and recover them as a priority rather than an after-thought.

This fall the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands’ Species at Risk Coordination Office (SaRCO) will release another options document detailing possible Mountain Caribou recovery choices for government. After release of the document they have committed to meeting with parties affected by any decision to receive input on the various options. Currently there is no plan to hold public meetings even though deliberately managing part of our wildlife heritage for extinction or local extirpations is being considered.

I encourage you to write to Premier Campbell to voice your opinions on Mountain Caribou recovery and on the need for full public consultations prior to any decisions being made. It is difficult for me to imagine that we will be better off in any way without Mountain Caribou in our region, nor any of the other wildlife that share habitat with the Mountain Caribou.

For more information please try: www.mountaincaribou.org or, http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/sarco/

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Lawrence Redfern is Outreach Director for the Mountain Caribou Project, and lives in Raspberry with his wife and two children.