The much-studied South Selkirk mountain caribou herd is teetering on the brink of extinction.

That discovery this month has focused international attention on the disaster faced by the only herd that roams between the U.S. and Canada, but biologists are warning that the crisis extends to other herds in the south of the province.

The southern mountain caribou population has dropped to about 3,800 animals this year, down from about 4,500 last year, according to the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), which is calling for emergency action to protect critical habitat.

“For decades B.C. has failed to protect sufficient critical habitat to even maintain mountain caribou, never mind recover them,” said Candace Batycki, program director for Y2Y.

“Canada has failed in its responsibility under the federal Species At Risk Act to intervene when provincial recovery measures are insufficient.”

The caribou census found that the South Selkirk herd is down to three females from 11 last year and biologists estimate that at least 14 of B.C.’s 54 herds could be in trouble.

Provincial government wildlife biologist Leo De Groot said finding out there were only three females remaining in the South Selkirk herd was a surprise.

“I was hoping we would at least have as many as last year, if not more,” he said.

One animal was known to have died, but there is no clue what happened to the others and it is not yet known whether any of the remaining females are pregnant, he said.

This winter the aim was to put pregnant females into a maternity pen, built with money raised by the Kalispel tribe in Washington state, but the snow was too deep to carry through with the plan, he said.

At least four other southern herds are down to critical numbers and, as the federal and provincial governments face pressure to protect more habitat from logging, road-building and recreational use, some scientists are wondering whether efforts should be concentrated on herds where there appears to be at least a slim chance of success.

Robert Serrouya, director of the Caribou Monitoring Unit at the University of Alberta and a Revelstoke resident, was not surprised at the South Selkirk herd’s imminent demise, because of habitat loss around the U.S./Canada border.

“That herd is facing conditions in the environment that are not suitable for persistence. It would be very difficult at this time to recover that herd,” he said.“You can’t fix the habitat problem overnight; that takes decades.”

“Unlike a few exceptional, rare herds further north where we are actually seeing glimmers of recovery, down there you have permanent land conversion — agriculture and human settlement — so it’s almost impossible to restore farming and range land back to natural forest.”

With limited funds, it would make sense to prioritize recovery efforts, Serrouya said.

De Groot agrees triage is part of the discussion, and said even the idea of transplanting animals from other herds, which has been done in the past in South Selkirk, is not gaining traction because of fears it would be a wasted effort.

“No one is offering up any caribou,” he said.

No simple solution

Problems started last century when explorers and prospectors shot as many caribou as they could. Then, as attitudes about an unending supply of wildlife shifted, caribou were faced with forest harvesting moving from the valleys to high elevations, meaning wolves, cougars and bears moved into mountain caribou habitat to follow the deer, elk and moose that thrived in the clearcuts.

Caribou are an easy catch as they are not as skittish as deer and don’t kick as hard as moose. Given their slow rate of breeding, the results can be devastating, De Groot said.

In addition to predation, mountain or deep snow caribou need to survive the winter by eating lichen from old-growth trees, meaning newly planted forests cannot support them.

Biologists hoped that with predator control, such as the controversial wolf cull, an increase in moose hunting and maternal pens to protect pregnant females and new calves, caribou herds could survive until forests regenerate, but that is now unlikely for the South Selkirk herd.

“We have made huge advances in habitat protection since 2007 and we now have 80 to 90 per cent of their core habitat protected from future logging, but we are still dealing with the legacy of previous logging. The trees don’t grow that fast and it takes decades for the clearcuts to grow in so that they are not attracting the elk, moose and deer,” De Groot said.

“We had hoped that, maybe, if we could get the caribou through the next decades, these cutblocks would have grown back.”

Ongoing activity in critical habitat

Some people doubt whether habitat protection has been enforced and Batycki, pointing to voluntary industry habitat protection measures in the Peace area, wants an interim moratorium on industrial activity in critical habitat while governments sort out their recovery plans.

“The federal government has the power to do that,” she said.

Gwen Bridge of Yellowstone to Yukon said mapping and analysis clearly shows that logging and road building has been ongoing in critical habitat, even in areas that were supposedly protected through the 2007 plan.

The herds are also facing increased stress from recreational users, Bridge said.

“New proposals for extensive helicopter-based recreation on the South Purcells are illustrative of the many stresses facing caribou in southeast B.C.,” she said.

DeGroot agrees recreational use of the area is a problem as caribou move away from disturbance and, in winter, that movement takes energy, using precious body fat, and tends to move the animals through avalanche territory, he said.

One of the few bright spots in the mountain caribou world is the Klinse-Za herd, which was down to 36 animals when consulting biologist Scott McNay, of Wildlife Infometrics Inc., started working with the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations in 2013.

The herd has now doubled in size through the use of maternity pens with 24-hour-a-day shepherds, habitat protection, restoration of forest cover, blocking access to predators and wolf removal.

“We thought the herd was going to be extirpated in two years…and the reason that this is working here is that we are throwing everything at the recovery effort. It’s a slow process, but it’s working,” McNay said.

But recovery efforts are expensive and, province-wide, much will come down to economic constraints and whether there is social will, McNay said.

“First I think we have to prove that in at least one case we can restore a caribou herd and it hasn’t been done yet,” McNay said.

If all subspecies of caribou in B.C. are counted, there are about 19,000 animals, down from about 40,000 in the early 1900s, said Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister Doug Donaldson.

“We need to do whatever we can to help enhance and recover caribou habitat to rebuild the numbers of this iconic species,” he said at B.C. Wildlife Federation’s annual conference, when he announced a $2-million grant to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation to help restore caribou habitat and reduce predation through reforestation, fencing and changing sight lines.

Up to $50 million over five years has been slotted for the province’s caribou recovery program and the Alberta government has announced $85 million over the next five years for caribou habitat restoration.

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B.C. will continue to kill wolves for at least a decade in an attempt to save endangered caribou according to government documents released this week — but new research re-confirms that caribou declines are primarily caused by industrial development.

The province recently finished the first year of its province-wide wolf cull, which resulted in the killing of 84 animals. But documents released to the Globe and Mail indicate the B.C. government is aware habitat destruction is at the root of declining caribou populations.

“Ultimately, as long as the habitat conditions on and adjacent to caribou ranges remain heavily modified by industrial activities, it is unlikely that any self-sustaining caribou populations will be able to exist in the South Peace [region],” the document says.

New research published in the journal Biological Conservation re-enforces that view.

In their paper, “Witnessing Extinction,” Chris Johnson and Libby Ehlers from the University of Northern B.C. and Dale Seip from the B.C. Ministry of Environment found that the cumulative impacts of roads, mining, oil and gas development and forestry have resulted in a 65.9 per cent loss of caribou habitat.

The study concludes that in B.C. this level of habitat restoration and protection is unlikely.

“At current rates of habitat loss and population decline, these caribou, a significant component of Canada’s biodiversity, are unlikely to persist. Although the factors leading to extinction are complex, the cumulative impacts of industrial development are a correlative if not causative factor,” the authors conclude.

According to the federal government’s caribou recovery strategy, provinces are expected to meet a target of 65 per cent undisturbed caribou habitat in all ranges by 2017.

Wolf Cull Ignores Main Drivers of Caribou Decline

Experts say the wolf cull program is a band-aid solution, which overlooks the real drivers of caribou decline.

The real problem is much less exciting than wolves — it’s shrubs, according to Robert Serrouya, of the Columbia Caribou Research Project and researcher with the University of Alberta.

Shrubs — left to grow in areas that have been logged — provide prime habitat for species such as moose and deer, which in turn compete for habitat with caribou and inflate wolf populations. These species are referred to as “alternate prey.”

Serrouya is advancing research that could minimize the killing of wolves and transform caribou recovery in the province: alternate prey management.

By suppressing moose and deer populations, wolf numbers may naturally decline, Serrouya said. He added that killing more populous species that are commonly hunted for food, such as moose, deer and elk, may be received more favourably by the public than the wolf cull, which has received widespread criticism.

“The thing about prey reduction is you have to do much less predator control because you’ve reduced their food source, they won’t breed as much or colonize an area as much because you’ve reduced their resource,” he said.

Industrial Impacts in B.C. Growing

But other experts argue even killing off other prey species such as moose or deer won’t help much if the B.C. government doesn’t slow the province’s industrialization.

Paul Paquet, a wolf biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the killing of wolves or other prey species to save caribou while ignoring habitat loss is not only misguided, but unethical.

“It’s really frustrating, the wolf cull really creates a moral dilemma for people,” he said. “It’s useless to pursue without aggressive measures to protect habitat.”

“Habitat, habitat. That’s been repeated since the ’70s and ’80s,” he said.

Paquet said the B.C. government put a “totally arbitrary time frame” on the wolf cull, while contributing to the rapid industrialization of the north.

He pointed to the recent study showing a strong correlation between caribou declines and industrial development in B.C.’s South Peace region.

“At Raincoast, that’s been our primary point — to protect what we have, hold the line on what habitat remains.”

‘I Want To Eat a Caribou Before I Die’

Roland Willson, chief of the West Moberly First Nation in northeast B.C., said caribou declines have transformed his traditional way of life.

Speaking at a recent event in Victoria, Willson said the proposed Site C dam will mean further damage to caribou herds, which his tribe is working hard to protect.

“I want to eat a caribou before I die,” he said, talking about a book he wrote with the same title.

“We’ve put together a study on what we’re losing by not being able to harvest caribou any more,” he said, noting caribou is essential to traditional practices involving food preparation, tool and cloth making and art.

Willson said his people have had to go to court to fight against industrial development, especially mining, in caribou habitat.

“Canada has a Species at Risk Act that B.C. isn’t listening to,” he said. “B.C. isn’t following its own best practices.”

Willson said he isn’t against the province’s wolf cull in principle, adding the West Moberly people have long “managed the number of wolf packs.”

Willson added he isn’t opposed to industry, but wants the province to find a way to balance development with treaty rights that protect his nation’s right to traditional hunting practices.

“We don’t want to just look at the caribou. We want to eat them.”

The West Moberly First Nation is located in Treaty 8 territory in B.C. where there are thousands of oil and gas wells. The Treaty 8 Tribal Association is currently working on a strategic assessment of the cumulative impacts of development in the territory, which covers 279,000 square kilometres in B.C.

Too Late for Habitat Focus?

For Serrouya, the opportunity to focus solely on habitat protect might have been missed years ago.

“We used to do so much forestry in this province,” he said. “It’s much better now with large protected areas.”

He added that protection of old-growth forests has helped limit habitat loss and he argued B.C.’s caribou decline “isn’t necessarily being led by sprawling oil and gas activity.”

“It’s the legacy of intensive logging,” he said. “Unfortunately we can’t speed up the regrowth of deforested areas.”

“The key factor with all of this is, if you don’t do anything with the population side — the caribou, moose, deer, wolves — and you just focus on habitat protection, you’ll lose the caribou,” he said.

Paquet disagrees, however.

“Habitat protection has always been the most important part of this story,” he said, adding the removal of top predators, such as wolves, can be damaging for complex ecosystems in the long term.

“I think a lot of it is solvable,” Paquet said. “But it means full protection of their critical habitat, to hold the line there and reestablish them as their populations increase.”

“For that you need more critical habitat and less rampant industrial development. But will that ever happen in B.C.?”

Image Credit: B.C. wolf by John E. Marriott

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