In a long-delayed decision, B.C.’s imperilled southern mountain caribou populations have finally been listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, raising hopes that the B.C. and federal governments will take action to protect the world’s only deep-snow caribou.

Seventeen B.C. caribou populations are included in the U.S. designation, which protects more than 12,000 hectares of critical habitat in Idaho and Washington so the species can eventually be reintroduced south of the border. 

The transboundary South Selkirk herd, also known as the Gray Ghost herd, has been listed as endangered in the U.S. since 1984. That herd became locally extinct this year, marking the disappearance of caribou from the contiguous United States.  

The U.S. listing comes as the B.C. government issues new cutting permits to log in critical caribou habitat — including in “no-harvest” zones in designated ungulate winter range for caribou herds included in the U.S. listing — and proposes to kill more than 80 per cent of the wolf population in the habitat of three at-risk herds, including the Hart Ranges herd named in the U.S. listing.

The U.S. Endangered Species Act listing named 17 southern mountain caribou population units in B.C. that are important for the eventual reintroduction of caribou in the U.S. Caribou herds in four of the units are now extirpated. Southern mountain caribou are also endangered in other parts of B.C. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon said the U.S. action should increase pressure on the federal and B.C. governments to address what he called “bullshit protection” of caribou habitat and provide new incentive for the B.C. government to enact a long-promised endangered species law that appears to be stalled.

“We have this bizarre situation where there’s no caribou left in the States but they’re now protecting habitat down there so that caribou can return to the country, while we still have caribou in B.C. but the province isn’t providing any meaningful habitat protection for the species,” Nixon told The Narwhal. 

“We just get these press release protections that are as flimsy as the paper they’re written on.”

B.C. government approved disturbances in ‘no harvest’ zones for caribou

In September, Doug Donaldson, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, told Black Press Media that additional protected areas for caribou are not needed outside the Peace region, fuelling fears that more southern mountain caribou herds will become locally extinct. 

One protection often cited by the B.C. government is the designation of ungulate winter range for caribou.

But Wilderness Committee recently discovered that since 2013 the provincial government has approved 22 disturbances in “no harvest zones” in designated ungulate winter range for caribou. 

While the government provided only scant details about the disturbances, they include cut blocks, drill pads and cat skiing, the latter of which extends over 1,000 hectares in ungulate winter range, according to Wilderness Committee spokesperson Charlotte Dawe. 

The B.C. government issued 78 cutting permits from October 2018 to July 2019 in the Hart Ranges, allowing industrial logging in 5,290 hectares, an area almost three times the size of the city of Victoria. The Hart Ranges caribou were named in the U.S. listing. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

“Companies, government and industries are still able to cause disturbances within ungulate winter range,” said Dawe, the committee’s conservation and policy campaigner.

“What they say is totally protected and set aside is not true.” 

Flagging tape marks the route of TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, which cuts a wide swath through critical habitat for the endangered Hart Ranges caribou herd in the Anzac River drainage. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The southeast Kootenays, whose caribou herds are included in the U.S. endangered species listing, is one of the areas with the greatest number of disturbances in “no harvest” zones, Dawe noted. 

Ungulate winter range designations for caribou also contain “conditional” harvest zones where forestry companies can apply for exemptions for logging and other disturbances, Dawe said.

When the Wilderness Committee and Wildlife Defence League recently examined disturbances in “conditional” harvest zones in the core critical habitat of the Wells Gray caribou herd, also included in the U.S. designation, they found the equivalent of more than 500 CFL football fields had been logged since April.

“They’re doing anything they can to avoid habitat protection,” Dawe said. “It [ungulate winter range] opened up a lot of room to be able to go in and log … It makes it pretty well open for business.”

B.C. approves 314 new cutblocks in endangered caribou habitat over last five months

Scientist says federal government is ‘foot-dragging’

Human disturbances, including clear-cut logging, mining and oil and gas development, have given natural predators like wolves easy access to caribou whose habitat has been destroyed or fragmented across Canada, with disastrous consequences for once-robust herds.

Almost 30 of B.C.’s 52 surviving caribou herds are at risk of local extinction, and a dozen of those herds now have fewer than 25 animals. 

Along with the South Selkirk herd, the South Purcell herd in the Kootenay region was declared functionally extinct in January. The few remaining survivors from both herds were captured, tranquilized, and transported by truck and helicopter to a pen, where they were held with an orphan caribou calf named Grace and later released to join the endangered Columbia North herd. 

Upon relocation, survivors from the South Selkirk and South Purcell herds rouse from sedation to find Grace, a curious youngster. Grace, born in a maternity pen for endangered caribou, became the sole remaining member of the Revelstoke herd after her mother was killed by wolves. Photo: B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations

Scientist Chris Johnson said there is already a significant amount of pressure on both the B.C. and federal governments to do more to protect the iconic species engraved on the Canadian quarter. 

The U.S. decision may finally prod the federal government to list southern mountain caribou as endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, as recommended five years ago by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), Johnson said.

Southern mountain caribou are listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). They are red-listed, or endangered, in B.C.

But shifting the federal status of caribou from threatened to endangered is unlikely to make much of a difference in terms of protection measures, said Johnson, an ecology professor at the University of Northern B.C. who sits on committees advising the federal government on caribou recovery. 

“There’s been a lot of foot-dragging,” he said in an interview.

“I’m not convinced that endangered status, from threatened, is really going to change a lot. Under SARA, threatened or endangered species basically have the same requirements for action and most of those timelines have been missed by the federal and provincial governments.”

Last May, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna declared that southern mountain caribou face “imminent threats” to their recovery and said immediate intervention was required. 

B.C. subsequently announced two draft agreements aimed at protecting caribou and two further years of consultations. 

If McKenna is not satisfied that B.C. has a suitable plan of action to protect endangered herds, she can ask the federal cabinet to approve an emergency protection order under the federal Species at Risk Act. That would allow Ottawa to make decisions that are normally within the jurisdiction of the B.C. government, such as whether or not to grant logging permits.

U.S. group hopes governments will collaborate on caribou recovery

The U.S. listing arose following a lawsuit launched earlier this year by the Center for Biological Diversity after the U.S. government failed to act on a 2015 court ruling that ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for mountain caribou.

Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney at the centre, said normally a designation would occur within a year of a court ruling. 

“They had seemed to kind of stall,” she said in an interview. “So we filed a lawsuit just asking them to move forward and finalize their designation.”

Santarsiere said the designation recognizes the South Selkirk herd moved back and forth between the U.S. and Canada and that B.C. still has 15 deep-snow caribou herds which could be important for the reintroduction of the species in the U.S. 

“I think that will force the governments to work together and come up with a plan that protects habitat so caribou can potentially return to the lower 48 states again at some point in the future.” 

She said the news earlier this year that the transboundary South Selkirk herd was functionally extinct was surprising to some Americans and saddened them. 

‘We have left it too late’: scientists say some B.C. endangered species can’t be saved

“A lot of people that had followed the plight of the caribou were really disappointed. And a lot of people who knew nothing about it heard it for the first time and thought ‘wow, why didn’t we do more to protect them when they were here?’ ”

Santarsiere said the designated critical habitat in the U.S. in northwestern Idaho and northeastern Washington is not nearly as much as the centre had hoped for, noting that 150,000 hectares were originally proposed for protection. 

“This was just a very miniscule amount compared to what was originally proposed, and I think it’s insufficient,” she said. 

“Existing tools are what’s led, and is continuing to lead, to the extinction of B.C. species.” 

“Certainly, caribou cannot and will not return to the lower 48 states without help from the British Columbia government to protect the habitat in British Columbia. And this is where we hope that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the British Columbia government can work together to come up with a recovery plan that really does protect habitat.”

A listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, widely viewed as a global gold standard for species protection, provides a program for the conservation of the species and its habitat. 

B.C. government proposed to shoot wolves in caribou habitat

In the absence of endangered species legislation in B.C., Nixon said the province has no legal duty under existing law to protect the habitat caribou need for their survival.

“Existing tools are what’s led, and is continuing to lead, to the extinction of B.C. species.” 

The U.S. legislation should get attention from high levels in the B.C. government and put political pressure on “from the top down that will hopefully lead to B.C. actually doing something to protect the only remaining mountain caribou left in the world,” Nixon said.

B.C.’s Environment Ministry referred questions about the caribou listing and endangered species legislation to the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. In an emailed response to The Narwhal, the forests ministry said “the designation in the U.S. does not impact British Columbia.” The ministry said it has no further comment at this time. 

‘Deliberate extinction’: extensive clear-cuts, gas pipeline approved in endangered caribou habitat

The federal environment ministry said in an email that it is aware of the U.S. designation, noting it is consistent with COSEWIC’s 2014 assessment of southern mountain caribou and that, under SARA, species listed as threatened and endangered receive the same treatment.

“Canada and U.S. officials are meeting regularly through different forums to discuss matters of common interest related to wildlife conservation,” the ministry said. 

The provincial government recently completed a 30-day consultation with Indigenous communities and other ‘stakeholders’ to discuss a proposed two-year predator cull in the habitat of three at-risk southern mountain caribou herds. 

They include the Hart Ranges herd, in whose critical habitat the B.C. government issued 78 cutting permits from October 2018 to July 2019, allowing industrial logging in 5,290 hectares, an area almost three times the size of the city of Victoria.

A clear-cut in the Anzac River drainage, making way for the Coastal GasLink pipeline to supply LNG Canada with fracked gas from B.C.’s northeast. The pipeline will impact three endangered caribou herds, including the Hart Ranges populations. TransCanada, which is building the pipeline, says it will have a “useful life” of 30 years. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

A memo signed by Darcy Peel, director of B.C.’s caribou recovery program, says more than 80 per cent of the wolves in the habitat of the three herds must be eliminated in order to reverse caribou declines. 

In preparation for the proposed wolf cull, the B.C. government is asking hunters not to shoot wolves with GPS radio collars as it considers shooting packs from helicopters in a last-ditch attempt to save the herds.  

In a memo to hunters, Donaldson’s ministry says it has deployed radio collars on wolves to more easily locate packs for “aerial wolf reduction,” noting that more than 80 per cent of wolves in the range of the three herds in central B.C. must be killed to reverse caribou population declines. 

“When collared wolves are removed from their pack, the capability to reduce wolf numbers is significantly diminished, as packs can no longer be located quickly and efficiently reduced,” said the document, a copy of which was shared with The Narwhal.

“The more collared wolves alive on the landscape, the more effective wolf pack reduction will be.” 

The document explains that collaring wolves is time-consuming and expensive, using the example of capturing and collaring wolves on the Chilcotin Plateau last winter, when it took 12 days to capture 21 wolves in 10 packs and the average cost of capturing and collaring each wolf was $9,400.

“We ask that hunters and trappers be aware of collared wolf packs in your area and consider the implications of removing radio-collared wolves from the wolf population … If you do harvest a collared wolf, please return collars to your local government office.”

Johnson and other scientists say that measures such as wolf culls and maternal penning, in which pregnant caribou cows are captured and penned until their calves are old enough to stand a chance of escaping predators, will only save caribou herds from local extinction if sufficient habitat protections are also in place. 

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A sliver of hope was offered Monday to beleaguered Grand Forks business owners, many of whom remain unable to re-open after floods swept through the city last spring, destroying buildings, stock and livelihoods.

Jennifer Rice, Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness, during a visit to the city, handed over $2.9 million in provincial funding for small businesses in the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary affected by the floods. Each business will have to apply individually, through the Canadian Red Cross, for grants of about $18,500 each.

Since the Kettle and Granby Rivers burst their banks in May, the province has provided about $13 million in recovery funding, but, with the exception of grants of $1,500 going to individual businesses, the bulk has gone to homeowners.

About 100 businesses were affected by the flood and more than two dozen around the downtown area remain closed, while many other home-based or agricultural operations are also unable to reopen.

Some business owners have left the community permanently because of financial hardship and fears that the floods will happen again because underlying causes, including forestry practices and climate change, remain in play.

Dozens of businesses, like these on Main Street in Grand Forks, remain unopened six months after the flood. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Low morale in Grand Forks

Estimates of losses by some business owners range beyond $500,000 and others are juggling credit cards and dipping into home equity and retirement savings while waiting to re-open, so, for those people, the extra cash will make a difference, said Graham Watt, flood recovery manager at the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary.

“It can’t replace the lack of insurance or address the scale of the damage, which for many businesses is hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it will help with some of the impact,” he said.

“I think it’s one important piece of the puzzle.”

Mayor Brian Taylor agreed that the cash injection will help push some businesses back to a viable position.

But, more than that, it is a boost to morale at a time when it is badly needed, he said.

“It’s a strong message to people that they haven’t been forgotten. There’s so much that went to the housing losses and very little recognition of the damages to businesses,” Taylor said.

A whitetail deer haunts the still-abandoned streets of Grand Forks where many businesses devastated by spring floods are expected to remain permanently closed. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

The papered windows of a shuttered business gives directions for deliveries on Main Street in Grand Forks. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Housing help from the province was essential, but “maybe now we’ll see a more hopeful community of people in the business sector,” he said.

“You need the employment, but, also, the vitality that is wrapped up in the small business sector. When they are depressed and feeling left out, it sets the tone for recovery. We want the recovery to be an optimistic process,” Taylor told The Narwhal.

One of the business owners looking forward to the financial help is Lorraine Davies-Van Boeyen, who has not yet been able to re-open her downtown business supply store and is trying to make ends meet by conducting sales from home.

“I really had my doubts when it seemed they were totally ignoring us,” said Davies-Van Boeyen whose losses are estimated at between $70,000 and $80,000.

“But this will certainly help. That’s for sure.”

The Red Cross has been asked to expedite the program and get the money moving, said Taylor, adding that some would have preferred the money to be handled by government and — as has taken place in some communities struck by wildfires — distributed without each business owner struggling through a full application and justification process.

“But I do realize there has to be accountability,” Taylor said.

The ice-ringed Kettle River, once a rushing torrent, now moves peacefully through Grand Forks’ South Ruckle neighbourhood. The large rocks in the foreground were being placed on the river bank days before the flooding in an effort to mitigate rising water levels. It was a lost cause, however, and the excavator that was used to place them ended up being stranded. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Emergency Act not updated for decades

The Red Cross website says the program will launch “in the coming weeks,” so it appears that the wait is not yet over and businesses could remain in limbo into the New Year.

Delays have been one of the many frustrations as the city attempts to pick itself up after the catastrophic flooding and Rice, who was appointed by Premier John Horgan to work with Grand Forks recovery and resilience efforts, acknowledged that many residents don’t believe the system has moved fast enough.

“We have been ill-prepared for these recent events,” she said.

However, B.C. will do better in the future and the unprecedented floods and wildfires over the last two years have prompted the province to take a close look at how it manages recovery, Rice told The Narwhal.

“The Emergency Program Act has not been updated since the 1990s so part of our whole internal looking includes examining what we need to do to put forward new legislation or to improve or update the Emergency Program Act.”

Government is planning to talk to the Insurance Bureau of Canada about problems experienced in Grand Forks and will take a close look at the Disaster Financial Assistance, Rice said.

Sandbags still surround a house deemed unsafe for habitation in the neighbourhood of South Ruckle. The city hopes that with provincial and federal funding it will be able to complete a buyout of many of the condemned homes. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Disaster Financial Assistance is based on 80 per cent of the value of the home, but does not take into account the value of land or outbuildings. The result is that the lion’s share of compensation often goes to owners of expensive homes rather helping those struggling to get by.

“Do we have to look at that? Yes,” Rice said.

The aim is to shift to a more adaptive system with a focus on rebuilding more resilient communities, she said.

“Right now, the way legislation works and, with the design of our program, it is very much about dealing with the immediate need and getting people back on their feet or building back to pre-disaster. We are not actually legislated to do more mitigation or plan to build something that is more resilient,” Rice said.

‘What the heck can take that long’?

Watt is pleased that the province has realized that B.C.’s recovery strategies and legislation need to be revamped and that lessons from Grand Forks will be used to address future problems.

“There’s no real playbook after the first few weeks of recovery,” he said.

Grand Forks resident Les Johnson said floods are different from wildfires, where rebuilding can start shortly after the fire is extinguished, and, in the face of climate change, there is an urgent need for B.C. to look at how to cope with future floods.

“Here we are six months later and we are still waiting,” he said.

“People here are just wondering what the heck can take that long. It is something we are going to face in the future as a province,” he said.

Rice would not comment on claims by some foresters and local residents that the severity of the floods was worsened by clearcutting at higher elevations in watersheds around Grand Forks and excessive construction of logging roads.

The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations has said the floods were caused by a heavy snowpack in the Boundary region, estimated at 238 per cent of the norm, followed by unusually warm weather and days of heavy rain.

The log yard and mill of forestry giant Interfor is located in the heart of Grand Forks. Many residents feel that rampant clear cutting of forests in watersheds above the Granby and Kettel rivers acted as a catalyst to already dangerous flood conditions. Interfor too suffered damages during the spring floods. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

While there is no dispute that the unusual weather was a catalyst, some point to massive clearcuts and a 2015 Forest Practices Board ruling that government had not taken adequate action to address road density in the area.

Forestry consultant Martin Watts has conducted computer model studies showing that the amount of timber in the Boundary Timber Supply Area has been overestimated by 20 per cent, meaning the Annual Allowable Cut is too high — claims disputed by the forests ministry.

“When one combines a rate of logging that is 20 per cent above a sustainable level with excessive logging at high elevations, the result is flooding,” Watts told the Narwhal.

Although Rice steered clear of commenting on forestry issues, she said the province will be looking at external factors and not just the aftermath of flooding, because Emergency Management B.C. has recently adopted the Sendai framework.

“It looks at how we adapt for a changing world and do disaster mitigation and adaptation. It’s a totally different approach…(Now) we tend to plug a lot of holes and deal with things in silos and, by adopting the Sendai framework we are looking at the upstream, middlestream and downstream effects of the various risks we face in B.C.,” she said, emphasizing that climate change is a vital part of that equation.

Fred Marshall, a retired forester, walks through cutblock 04Q-09, a 454-hectare clearcut logged by Interfor above the Boundary Creek drainage. Marshall believes questionable logging practices are one of the main causes of the Grand Forks floods. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Logging practices blamed

But residents of Grand Forks are already looking nervously at next spring and there are growing concerns over logging practices, Taylor said.

“No one is saying it’s the only factor creating the flooding, but it could be a contributing factor to how quickly the water came down. I think we need a closer look at that. Plus the information that’s out there that logging practices have not been sustainable,” he said.

Taylor would like to see Grand Forks control its own watershed, but the previous provincial government felt municipalities were too volatile to handle that responsibility he said.

“It was also felt that we would be too subject to being influenced by environmentalists who would convince us to reduce the cut and we wouldn’t be able to make our allocations of revenue. That was clearly an indication of the previous government’s attitude to us and our watershed. We are hoping we will get a different response from the NDP government,” he said.

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Despite a legal setback, Martin Watts is vowing to continue his crusade against what he believes are inaccuracies in provincial data used to determine the annual cut allowed each year in B.C. forests.

Watts, owner of FORCOMP Forestry Consulting Ltd., claims he was blacklisted by the provincial government after he went public with concerns that corrupted data and unvalidated computer models were being used in the Timber Supply Review Process, which is used by the Chief Forester to set the Annual Allowable Cut.

Problems became apparent after budget and staff cuts started in 2002, the year the former Liberal government was elected, according to critics.

Some timber inventories are now more than 20 years old and fail to take climate change or beetle infestation into consideration, Watts said.

Forestry Consultant Who Warned of Timber Overcutting Continues Court Battle https://t.co/Bpaupy69QZ #bcpoli #Forestry pic.twitter.com/92PjIdEfel

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 27, 2017

But, when he complained about systemic shortcomings, he claims he found government contracts were written in ways that excluded his company from bidding and that he was unable to access provincial date he needed for private sector consulting contracts.

“The fields I work in — growth and yield, data management and the analysis of data — are mainly controlled by government,” Watts told DeSmog Canada.

FORCOMP now exists only on paper because of the problems, he said.

“Most importantly, the government controls the data I require. Prior to pointing out problems with the government’s models and data analysis, I had no problem getting access to data. Since I have pointed out the problems, I have been denied access to data and any information I require. I usually have to make an FOI (freedom of information) request,” he said.

Watts launched a civil suit against the province and four Forests Ministry employees, and a hearing to determine whether the case could proceed was held in May.

In a decision released this month Master Carolyn Bouck ruled that the Notice of Civil Claim was likely to fail at trial because the pleading was “verbose and confusing.”

The claim cannot stand in its present form, but the plaintiffs ought to be given an opportunity to plead their case, Bouck wrote, giving Watts an opportunity to file an amended notice of civil claim before Aug. 31.

The Crown, on behalf of the province, had asked for the case to be dismissed saying there “is no such cause of action as blacklisting in B.C. law” and emphasizing that government can hire whoever they believe is most qualified to perform consultancy services.

Watts said he will resubmit the claim.

“My choice is either to keep going or to give up on forestry,” he said.

Watts is funding the legal challenge from his retirement savings and estimates that, so far, it has cost about $20,000.

“There is no way to tell what the final cost will be. It depends how things play out,” he said.

Watts hopes that the newly elected NDP government and Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, will consider changes in forest policy and put more emphasis on sustainable development instead of a sole focus on maintaining the Annual Allowable Cut.

“I don’t know how much effect a new government can have on changing the culture within the Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch,” he said.

“They have to be more transparent about the uncertainty with the models they use and learn to accept criticism, as opposed to treating it as an attack on them,” he said.

Image: Dru! via Flickr

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