Saving What's Left of the Caribou

The globally unique southern mountain caribou species that ranges throughout the interior wet belt of BC is declining rapidly. These animals have wide, furry hooves to tread over deep snow. For nearly half a year, their diet is almost exclusively arboreal lichen, found at lower and higher elevations.

Listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act and as endangered by the Committee of the Status of Endangered Species in Canada (COSEWIC), there are approximately 1,200 animals left in BC.

Wells Gray Provincial Park provides sanctuary to the world’s second largest population of southern mountain caribou. The southern Wells Gray herd, for which the petition has been submitted, numbers 121 individuals, less than half of 325 in 2002.

“The caribou population here has been dropping dramatically since 2002 because of logging adjacent to the park,” explains Trevor Goward, a local resident, lichenologist and curator of lichens at the University of British Columbia, and UCRG spokesperson. “In 2014, the federal government designated areas in the Upper Clearwater Valley as critical habitat and thus to remain untouched to ensure the caribou survives.”

However, in 2016, logging permits were issued for the same areas by the provincial government, which will likely cause the herd to decline further. The most recent harvesting happened in May 2017.

Logging in high elevation areas depletes the old-growth forest where arboreal lichens grow. “Lichens become more abundant as the forest ages,” says Goward. It takes up to 150 years to have another old-growth forest that supports lichen.

Logging in valley bottoms causes deer and moose to advance, which increases the likelihood of encountering predators such as wolves. “Deer can run from predators, moose can fight, but the caribou, which usually hide in the forests away from danger, have nowhere to go. They are sentenced to die,” says Goward.

Threats

None of the existing caribou in Canada are doing well. “Each type is distinct from each other, but latest assessments showed that all types are at some risk of extinction,” says Justina Ray, PhD, co-chair of the Terrestrial Mammal Subcommittee with COSEWIC, and president of the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.

“The mountain caribou in western Canada have deteriorated in the last 10 years, but the southern mountain caribou unit are among the worst in the country,” she explains. Populations are dwindling and becoming increasingly isolated from each other. Human activity is the main cause of the profound habitat changes they are experiencing.

What the future holds

Measures implemented so far include predation control, prey reduction, maternal penning, captive breeding, and relocation.

“Killing wolves is cruel and an unsustainable solution unless the logging stops,” says Goward. Ray agrees it is an example of “intensive management when things have gone too far.” It’s a drastic measure that may stabilize herds, but is unsustainable without habitat regeneration at the same time, which takes decades.

Penning the caribou to allow safe birthing grounds has had some promising results, but it might not apply to all of the caribou units. Relocation and captive breeding do not always work.

“With their habitat changing dramatically, and without these intensive measures, the caribou will not survive,” explains Ray. And they will not, unless forest harvesting and other industrial developments are reduced as well.

Those changes must be made now, if caribou are to live.