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Can Alberta’s ‘grey ghosts’ survive the intensifying wildfire crisis?

In our latest newsletter, we look at how woodland caribou face huge pressure from industry. How does a wildfire crisis threaten an already fragile species?
Grey ghosts in the smoke
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A boreal carbiou walks thorugh an industrial project site in Treaty 8 Territory


Trina Moyles knows a thing or two about fires. 

After all, she spent years watching for them, 24 hours a day. Not everyone wants to sign up to spend five-month summers all alone, climbing 100-foot towers and watching for sparks in the boreal forest. But that’s what the freelance journalist did — she even wrote a book about it.

Growing up in northern Alberta, the boreal forest has been front of mind in Trina’s family for decades. And as wildfires started taking centre stage this summer, a question crept up: what happens to the animals who make the burning forests their home?

Case in point: last year alone, threatened woodland caribou — Alberta’s reindeer — lost more than five per cent of their critical habitat in the province to wildfires. Some northern herds lost closer to 15 per cent of their ranges. (Alberta isn’t the only province where caribou are facing a crisis.)

Caribou numbers were already dwindling — something Trina’s dad had long been tracking.

“I grew up listening to the stories of my dad’s aerial flights over the badly fragmented boreal forest,” she wrote to me this spring. She talked about how her father, Dave Moyles, had worked for decades as a wildlife biologist, counting caribou in Alberta’s north. They were so otherworldly — such surreal, elusive creatures — he referred to them as the grey ghosts of the forest.
 

Illustration of caribou fleeing wildfire smoke
🔗 Wildfires are destroying habitat for Alberta’s endangered reindeer. Can they survive?

Now, Trina wondered if wildfires would become the magical species’ death knell. As she writes this week, oil and gas infrastructure, seismic lines, forestry cutblocks, roads and more all cut through caribou habitat, making it a fragile existence for the grey ghosts.

But it wasn’t just industrial impacts that concerned her father in his decades monitoring the species. He worried about what happens when wildfire destroys critical caribou habitat. 

Unprecedented and devastating wildfire seasons in the West mean the future of Alberta’s woodland caribou — one of the few animals to survive the Ice Age and the Holocene — is even more uncertain. 

Researchers have been working to understand how fires factor in when it comes to all the threats caribou face. And there is work underway to protect them, though plans have been stalled.

As Trina asks, what is the fate of the grey ghosts when they’re shrouded in smoke and flames

Take care and don’t be scared of ghost stories,

Sharon Riley
Prairies bureau chief

 

A transmission tower is pictured from a perspective directly underneath it, looking up. The colours are altered such that the tower appears in a geometric pattern in a gradient o blue, purple and pink.

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One piece of the puzzle


A year ago, an Alberta watchdog launched an investigation into the way the province handled freedom of information requests — the mechanism we use to keep the public informed on what happens behind closed doors — after dogged reporting by The Narwhal and The Globe and Mail.

It all began when I learnt provincial officials were meeting to talk about how to deal with my requests, while using a variety of excuses to not respond to them. It nudged me to file a 10-page complaint, and within two weeks, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta agreed to launch a systematic investigation.

The commissioner’s office told the Edmonton Journal last week it’ll keep probing for at least four more months — and we’ll keep watching for updates. Journalists at The Narwhal strive to bring our readers the complete picture, and ensuring public information is made free and open is just one piece of the puzzle.

If you believe in this work, consider signing up as a member by giving what you can today

— Mike De Souza, director of enterprise and investigations
 

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This week in The Narwhal

Ontario Premier Doug Ford stands at a podium that reads Building Ontario, with an Enbridge sign below it and under a tent that's labelled Enbridge
Ontario is taking cues from Enbridge Gas — a fossil fuel giant ‘freaking out’ about its future
By Fatima Syed
New records show the Doug Ford government and Enbridge were in regular contact as the provincial energy regulator considered the role of natural gas in a future shaped by climate change.

READ MORE
A tree is engulfed by orange flames as two people in wildfire gear look on.
As the world burns: the art and science of responding to B.C. wildfires
By Matt Simmons
READ MORE
Transmission lines rise up from the ground, with wind turbines in the background.
The CEO overseeing the redesign of Alberta’s electricity grid is gone. Questions remain
By Drew Anderson
READ MORE
The Algoma steel plant photographed from across the St. Mary's river in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. The plant has a site-specific exemption from the province's air pollution rules.
How Ontario allows industry to evade air pollution rules
By Leah Borts-Kuperman
READ MORE

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What we’re reading


Esk’etemc First Nation had long fought broken water promises. For IndigiNews, Dionne Phillips reports the battle finally came to an end with a $147-million federal settlement, which the Secwépemc community plans on using to benefit future generations.

In Northern California, a Karuk crew is using fire to fight fire, Vox’s Joseph Lee writes. Indigenous-led solutions — much needed in our recurring battles with infernos — are also being implemented in Canada by stewards like the Gitanyow.
 
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