Culling Alberta’s wolves without prioritizing caribou habitat protection and restoration is like “shoveling sand,” according to Mark Hebblewhite, associate professor of ungulate habitat biology at the University of Montana.

Hebblewhite says the Alberta government is sponsoring a wolf cull without doing the one thing that could possibly scientifically justify it: conserving and restoring critical caribou habitat.

“That’s the tragedy here: the Alberta government blew the opportunity to do the right thing,” he said.

“It’s all shoveling sand without real commitment to habitat conservation.”

Scientists have warned of Alberta’s caribou losses for decades and in recent years have argued the majority of the herds are endangered with some facing an imminent risk of local extinction. Provinces have until 2017 to formulate provincial caribou recovery plans under the new federal caribou recovery strategy released in 2012.

The goal for each province is to maintain 65 per cent undisturbed habitat in all caribou ranges, according to Duncan MacDonnell, public affairs officer for Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD).

“It is ESRD’s responsibility to implement recovery plans,” for Alberta, MacDonnell said, adding that since 2004 the province has had a wolf cull in place “to hold the line while the habitat recovery plans take place and are implemented.”

Since 2006 more than 1,000 wolves have been shot in the Little Smokey and A La Peche caribou ranges.

The province’s use of predator management has generated serious controversy, especially in light of continuing sales of oil and gas leases in caribou ranges, a move experts say undermines the scientific integrity of the wolf cull.

“There are all kinds of ethical problems in this mess,” Hebblewhite told DeSmog Canada.

“It’s unethical to sell oil and gas leases in endangered caribou critical habitat.”

Hebblewhite recently published a paper, Managing Wolves to Recover Threatened Woodland Caribou in Alberta, that demonstrated the wolf cull in the Little Smoky and A La Peche regions helped stabilize local caribou herds, but won’t contribute to their long-term survival without habitat recovery and protection.

“If we had started killing wolves 10 years ago, stopped all development, and started restoration, we might actually be somewhere,” he said.

Hebblewhite is preparing to release additional research that shows that since the release of the federal recovery strategy, the federal and provincial governments have allowed significant oil and gas activity to continue in caribou ranges.

“This is where it is most egregious: on the one hand, the Alberta government is saying they are doing habitat conservation while on the other I have proprietary oil and gas industry data that shows there have been hundreds of wells drilled in the Little Smoky herd, and 1,500 wells drilled in the Cold Lake herd range on the border with Saskatchewan. And that herd is the second most rapidly declining herd in the country.”

“And this is just since 2012 when the federal caribou recovery plan, including the delineation of critical habitat, was adopted,” he said.

“We are still destroying caribou habitat…it shows quite clearly that we’re killing wolves and we are not doing anything to recover caribou or the boreal forest.”

Habitat Destruction, Seismic Lines a Costly Lack of Foresight

Oilsands companies are in a “mad rush” to restore seismic lines in Alberta’s caribou ranges before the province reveals its caribou recovery plan — mandated under the Federal Caribou Recovery Strategy — by 2017.

With tens of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines, their restoration is critical for reducing the mobility of wolves in caribou ranges.

Scott Nielsen, a University of Alberta professor who is studying seismic line restoration, said now that restoration on these legacy lines is happening, industry should work with scientists to ensure it’s done right. At a cost of roughly $10,000 per kilometre Nielsen says prioritizing the most critical areas for caribou and other species is critical.

“A lot of companies are grouping together and doing restoration projects, but if each company is doing a little bit here and a little bit there, the scale at which the disturbances occur at and the scale at which caribou and wolves move at are big. We need to think big when we’re thinking of the restoration or the offsets.”

“It would be even better if the work could be coordinated from the stand point of objectively trying to identify areas with the best bang for our buck both from the perspective of biodiversity and cost benefits,” he said.

And now, Nielsen said, even with aggressive restoration in place, “from a caribou perspective there has to be some form of zoning or restriction in development for at least certain herds for them to persist.”

But the government of Alberta, in lieu of enforcing habitat protection — which would require limiting new leasing for oil and gas companies — has relied on predator control as a means to keep caribou herds alive.

Predator control, Nielsen said, “tends to be a favourite tool used when you’re desperate and you have a population or a species that is critically endangered and threatened.”

The wolf cull is “one tool the managers are using for a short-term solution,” Nielsen said. “And if they aren’t working towards a long-term solution then it should be abandoned.”

Real Issue is Habitat Conservation

For Raincoast Conservation Foundation biologist and wolf expert Paul Paquet, the continued destruction of caribou habitat demonstrates the Alberta government is working at cross-purposes.

“The whole issue around oil and gas leases is it shows the government working at cross-purposes,” Paquet said. “I think it undermines their credibility.”

He added the negative effects of unrestored seismic lines on caribou habitat has been known for decades, but both government and industry have failed to take meaningful action.

“They don’t seem intent on doing what needs to be done,” Paquet said, adding the failure to protect caribou habitat throws the province’s ongoing wolf cull into a “moral dilemma.”

Research recently published by Hebblewhite and his colleagues shows that while the killing of wolves in some areas has stabilized populations, aggressive predator control was unable to put caribou back on a path to self-sustaining populations.

“All of this is useless if the primary reasons for caribou decline isn’t addressed and that primary one now is loss of habitat and degraded habitat,” Paquet said.

Hebblewhite agrees.

Predator control “has to be against the template of real commitment to habitat conservation. But if we’re just doing it in small little parts of the habitat and destroying other parts, it’s probably not going to have a very good effect.”

The wolf cull “reminds us we’ve screwed up the entire ecosystem,” Hebblewhite said. “Killing wolves is a short-term response to that. It buys us time.”

Image Credit: John E. Marriott

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Companies in Alberta’s oilsands are scrambling to find a way to reclaim tens of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines cut into the boreal forest before regulations that mandate the recovery of endangered caribou habitat are implemented in late 2017.

But while crews experiment with planting black spruce in piles of dirt during minus-25 degree weather in a bid to repair the forest, the Alberta government continues to lease massive segments of the region for further exploration and still hasn’t mandated reclamation of seismic lines.  

The controversy over caribou habitat and wolf culls in Alberta has stewed for years, but the issue of seismic lines has been largely overlooked. It’s these linear corridors cut through the forest (used to set off explosive charges to locate oil and gas deposits) that encourage predators like wolves to infiltrate what remains of fragmented caribou habitat.

“I don’t think a lot of people thought these seismic lines were a big deal,” said Scott Nielsen, an Alberta Biodiversity Conservation Chair and University of Alberta professor. “But … there are these cascading effects that you can’t anticipate.”

In a century of oil and gas development, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of these wolf freeways have been cut through Alberta’s forest. In one section of the Lower Athabasca region alone, south of Fort McMurray and extending out to Cold Lake, there are 53,000 kilometres of seismic lines.

“We still face the legacy of a tremendous amount of linear disturbances from the initial phases of exploration in the oilsands,” Nielsen said. “So it’s become a major conservation concern — or crisis — really.”

In 2012, the federal government released a recovery strategy for endangered caribou that demands that 65 per cent of their ranges be “undisturbed.” Right now, some Alberta caribou herds have as little as five per cent of their ranges left undisturbed.

“Trying to recover things after they’ve happened is a heck of a lot harder than preventing habitat disturbance in the first place,” Nielsen said.

Restoration Costs Estimated $10,000 Per Kilometre

Some industry players are already voluntarily putting their minds to finding a way to piece the fragmented forest back together — even though restoration costs roughly $10,000 per kilometre.

“With caribou being listed [as endangered] and these areas being defined as critical habitat — that’s why there’s a bit of a mad rush to deal with the legacy of disturbances that we have,” Nielsen said.

Companies Push Ahead with Restoration Despite Lack of Government Requirement

Devon Energy, an oilsands company involved in seismic line restoration since 2011, is trying to make it harder for wolves to move around in caribou ranges.

“Seismic lines, not just seismic lines but roads and trails out in northern Alberta, make it easier for wolves to travel and hunt more efficiently,” Amit Saxena, senior lands and biodiversity manger with Devon, told DeSmog Canada. “They are increasing the spatial overlap between wolves and caribou, more than pre-disturbance levels.”

Saxena said while most companies are doing what they can to ensure new seismic lines come with a lighter footprint — by reducing their width and straightness — there is still a lot of work to do to inhibit wolf movement on the thousands of kilometres of legacy lines crisscrossing the province.

“Sometimes we actually put up wooden or snow fences at 500 metre intervals along the line, and sometimes we’ll do log rollback and brush clearing, making big piles,” he said. “That not only impacts wolf movement on the line but also human movement on the line so that limits the amount of ATVs and quads that go down those lines that will ultimately negatively impact the recovery of the line.”

Devon is working toward the federal government’s target of 65 per cent undisturbed habitat in caribou ranges and prioritizes line recovery based on their habitat value for caribou. The company is also working to offset disturbance in new ranges with conservation in others.

But Saxena pointed out that since there is “no carte blanche requirement” from the province for seismic line restoration, companies are trying to find ways to balance the restoration with other priorities.

“We have to be realistic about it also,” Saxena said. “Industry priorities do play a role in there.”

Tree planting along seismic lines in the ALGAR historic restoration project area. Image from COSIA.

COSIA Pilot Project Tests Caribou Habitat Reclamation Techniques

Kris Geekie, director of community consultation and regulatory affairs for Nexen, said his company is exploring new seismic line restoration techniques in caribou habitat through the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) as part of the Algar Historic Restoration Project.

“We’re looking at an area nobody is currently active in. There are no oilsands leases within that area and what we’re testing is how can we restore [seismic lines] faster, what are the appropriate treatments, and what are the tactical plans specifically for managing forest fragmentation from seismic lines,” Geekie said.  

Geekie said Nexen, along with other oilsands companies like Statoil, Shell and ConocoPhillips, are working on 390 kilometres of seismic lines throughout the Algar region.

“The pilot is specifically designed to find out if we can improve the sustainability [of caribou] in that area. Basically, the less linear disturbance in the area, and the less access for wolves, is one way we can improve the sustainability of caribou herds.”

Caribou Recovery Plan Still to Come: Province

Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) is currently formulating the province’s caribou recovery plan, according to public affairs officer Duncan MacDonnell — although it’s too early to tell what role seismic line restoration will play in the plan.

“We must have caribou recovery plans ready to go by the end of 2017,” MacDonnell said. “It’s our responsibility to meet those plans according to the [federal] criteria.”

None of the provinces have filed their caribou recovery plans yet, he said, adding the variety of caribou ranges in Alberta alone has contributed to the delays in the draft plan’s release.

“How far [ESRD goes] in terms of restoration schedules or plans, we have no idea yet,” MacDonnell said.

He added ESRD is carrying out a wolf cull in the Little Smoky and A La Peche caribou ranges as an interim measure while the province prepares its recovery plans. Those plans are expected to include some restriction on new development in caribou ranges. 

Nexen seismic line replanting. Photo from Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship via Youtube.

Alberta Government Continues to Sell Energy Leases in Caribou Range

Yet the Alberta government’s recent sale of energy leases in caribou range has onlookers concerned not enough is being done to protect caribou habitat despite government promises.

Carolyn Campbell from the Alberta Wilderness Association said the government is “sending mixed messages” when it comes to caribou recovery.

In early March, the province came under fire for putting 21,000 hectares of energy leases in caribou habitat up for auction. Campbell said the day after her organization issued a news release on the auction, the government quietly announced the sale would be delayed.

Since then, several new small lease sales in that range have been announced.

“Alberta is being highly inconsistent right now,” Campbell said.

“The problem with new leasing is it creates new rights holders — energy companies — who have a time limit to prove up those leases and under weak rules that enables them to put down new well-sites, new roads, new pipeline infrastructure.”

Campbell said new energy lease sales continue while the government is perpetually delaying the release of range-specific recovery plans. She said Alberta initially committed to releasing the first plan, for the Little Smoky and A La Peche herds, in 2014.

“Time is running out for these caribou. It would be pretty inappropriate to try to run the clock out to 2017,” she said.

She added the current rules for habitat disruption are “unacceptably weak for an endangered species” even when paired with recent efforts to restore disturbed land.

“Even though some companies are getting interested in reclamation, the net effect with all the new leases and activity is ongoing degradation,” Campbell said.

“New lease sales should be totally deferred until there are strong range plans in effect.”  

Image Credit: Alex MacLean

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Alberta Energy Minister Diana McQueen toured key U.S. cities this week in an effort to gain the interests of major oil refiners and producers before an auction Wednesday will see the sale of 1,300 acres of new oil and gas leases. The leases overlap 650 acres of critical boreal caribou habitat as well as mountain caribou ranges. 

Caribou is an endangered species in the province, with a long history of being placed second to the province’s oil and gas priorities. Last week Alberta put 1,235 acres of mountain caribou range up for auction despite a recent Environment Canada report that called for the restoration of the region given the threat of local herds disappearing.

Both Alberta and the Government of Canada have consistently failed to stem the rapid decline of the province’s endangered caribou, a species now protected under the federal Species at Risk Act. An Environment Canada recovery plan, released in 2012, advanced habitat protection as one of the only means available to protect the vanishing species.

According to Carolyn Campbell conservation specialist at the Alberta Wilderness Association adequate habitat protection measures have yet to be put into place while oil and gas development continues to dramatically outpace conservation efforts.

“New leasing in caribou range should halt,” she said, “until there are real rules to prevent new footprint and restore old footprint.”

Although new project-level guidelines require industry to at times delay or coordinate new projects that will impact habitat, Campbell says the rules “still allow for a lot of harmful footprint.”

Both Alberta Energy and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) were asked about the leasing of land in caribou habitat but were unable to provide comment by the time of publication. 

Caribou are naturally timid creatures, their grazing and mating patterns easily disturbed by human and industrial activities. The rapid expansion of Alberta’s oilsands, including open-pit mines and infrastructure-heavy in situ extraction, as well as far-reaching oil and gas exploration in the region including the creation of seismic lines cut through large portions of the boreal forest, has dramatically reduced safe caribou habitat in which herds can persist at healthy levels.

Oil and gas industry activity in caribou ranges. Map by Global Forest Watch.

According to Campbell, the linear footprint caused by seismic lines and other surface disturbance “stimulates populations of deer, moose and predators” and “provides easy access for predators to reach caribou.” But the overwhelming scientific evidence, she said, “is that loss of habitat is the ultimate cause of caribou population declines.”

In 2011 the Canadian government released a draft recovery strategy that was heavily criticized for recommending a province-wide wolf cull as a means of supporting flagging caribou populations without addressing habitat loss. The plan drew wide-ranging condemnation from the scientific and environmental communities as well as First Nations who held industrial development was to blame for caribou declines, not the province’s wolves.

An independent study later confirmed Alberta’s wolves eat very little caribou and sustain themselves on a diet of deer, moose and elk. Although the fragmentation and disturbance of caribou habitat put caribou and wolves in closer quarters. 

"Caribou and wolves have co-existed over thousands of years,” Campbell said, “but too much human footprint robs the caribou of their ability to minimize overlap with wolves.”

In late 2012, five years after it was due, Environment Canada released a revised recovery strategy that called the oil and gas industry and the government of Alberta to work together to ensure at least 65 per cent of caribou habitat remain undisturbed to ensure caribou survival.

Critics were quick to point out the federal recovery strategy did not outline how Alberta should implement the 65 per cent strategy, leaving the plan largely undefined. Since then industry in Alberta has continued to operate mostly unimpeded, putting the caribou on a “collision course” with oil and gas interests, as Simon Dyer from the Pembina Institute put it at the time.

“The provincial government has previously not followed it scientists’ recommendations, nor even multi-sector groups’ recommendations, to temporarily stop leasing and logging until range plans are developed that focus on habitat recovery,” Campbell said. 

Mountain caribou populations have declined by more than 60 per cent since 2002. Boreal herds are in a similarly precarious state. In 2011 the Canadian government placed 70 per cent of Alberta’s boreal woodland caribou herds in or on the border of a ‘not self-sustaining’ category.

Although caribou declines have been tracked by scientists and conservationists for decades, the province’s emphasis on oil and gas development, coupled with loose and undefined recovery plans, has left the species struggling. And according to Campbell, this could have wide-reaching consequences for the surrounding ecosystem, even across provincial boundaries.

“If you look at the attached Environment Canada map (above) of boreal woodland caribou across Canada, it’s Alberta where most of the herds are at highest risk of dying out under current policies. This affects the genetic diversity and viability of neighbouring B.C., the North West Territories and Saskatchewan caribou populations. 

Beyond that, caribou are indicators of whether the boreal and foothills forests are healthy. If we change how these forests are managed so that caribou populations can recover (which Alberta states is its policy goal), then our northern Mackenzie watershed will be healthier, and many other species will benefit too, such as migratory birds that depend on old growth forest and intact wetlands.” 

Under Canada’s new caribou recovery strategy Alberta is legally required to develop plans to preserve and restore caribou ranges within five years. The province has yet to demonstrate how these plans will move forward in the face of new energy leases and land sales.

Although some basic changes could make a bit difference, Campbell said.

“In 2012, in response to thousands of Canadians speaking up for a strong boreal caribou recovery strategy, the federal government did strengthen the strategy to be more habitat-focused. Second, to its credit, in 2013 the Alberta government stopped new energy leasing in two west central Alberta caribou ranges and deferred some logging in one of those ranges until range plans are developed for those caribou.

This is a start, and it shows how important it is for citizens to get involved.”

But, she added, these efforts need to be backed up by “real rules to reduce footprint” which might mean a “re-thinking of forestry and energy.” Ultimately, resource managers are going to have to work together to more responsibly manage industry impacts and reduce disturbance to caribou habitat, she said.

Image Credit: Zak Richter/NPS via Flickr

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