Dwindling Wildlife Diversity

"It was the right move [to rescue the sole remaining caribou in a now-extinct herd]. That animal was not going to survive."
"[Mountain caribou have massive hoofs] pie plate or dinner plate, that's not an exaggeration [to function like snowshoes as they traverse mountain slopes]."
"[They are elusive animals] They don't call them the grey ghost for nothing."
"I am resolute about the return of that species [Selkirk caribou to the Lower 48]. It's too easy to say, 'Well, they're not here, let's quit'. That's not the tribe's [Kalispel Washington tribe] perspective."
Ray Entz, director of wildlife and terrestrial resources, Kalispel Tribe, Washington

"[The Selkirk population had grown to almost fifty in 2009 but since then the numbers have been] going down, down. They have no future with one, two or three animals."
"The caribou are just a more vulnerable species. They don't kick hard like a moose. They're not as skittish as a deer. They never have twins."
"So with these changes [in habitat and range], they're the ones that pay the price [easy kill for predators]."
Leo DeGroot, government wildlife biologist, British Columbia

File photo of the isolated population of mountain caribou inhabiting the Selkirk Mountains of southern B.C.Handout

The decision to capture the sole remaining Selkirk caribou once it was determined that one of three remaining last year wearing radio collars had been killed by predators and no sign had been seen or heard of the other in months, led Canadian wildlife managers to move to bring in the surviving female and place her in a protective pen to enable her survival. She was caught in a net shot from a helicopter and then sedated by biologists and transported to a maternity pen near Revelstoke, British Columbia.

Used as temporary caribou obstetric wards and nurseries where wildlife managers move pregnant females to feed them until their calves are over a month old, the pens now hold the captured Selkirk caribou and three other animals; one a calf born there and brought back when its mother was killed and two others from yet another dwindling southern mountain herd. The hope is to capture a female from a herd nearby to become familiar with the other refugees so that when they are released in one fell swoop, the new female will lead them to her habitat and safety in the wild.

The Kalispel Tribe is involved in the international move to conserve the South Selkirk herd, named so in reflection of the steep mountains where they live. Traditionally, historically, the tribe had hunted the caribou. That particular herd was considered by biologists to be "functionally extirpated", one of 15 isolated subpopulations within a broader group recognized as southern mountain caribou living in various landscapes from the northern tundra herds, all of which are shrinking, reflecting human development and altered habitat.

A female mountain caribou from the beleaguered Southern Selkirks herd feeds in a wet meadow in the southern Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Aug. 8, 2017

At one time, northern New England and upper portions of Great Lakes states -- Minnesota for example -- were populated by caribou, but their range narrowed and contracted northward over time. Fewer than thirty animals remained by 1983, leading to the Selkirk herd joining the endangered species list. Since 2012, there has been no sightings in the United States, according to a management plan linked to a multiagency international group studying the population which lives in inland temperate rain forests.

In the winter, the mountain caribou migrate to higher elevations to search for furry arboreal lichen that hang from old-growth trees, representing their seasonal survival food; their massive hooves enabling their grip on the snowy slopes. Their forest habitat has been fragmented over generations through the intrusion of logging operations, roads, power lines and oil exploration and mining in Canada. In place of the mature trees logged out, immature vegetation grew in, opportunistically attracting moose, deer and elk.

Numbers of caribou in B.C. are in decline — with just six remaining in the two most southerly herds. (Getty Images)

Their presence in turn attracted opportunistic predators which led to wolf culls in Canada but which did little to aid the survival of the caribou, less able to defend themselves than other species. And as they fell prey to wolves and mountain lions their numbers diminished dramatically. A caribou breeding program is foreseen for the near future in Canada but prospects of captive-bred animals released before four years have passed is remote, along with the uncertainty of whether they would restore the Selkirk herd or another herd facing a precarious existence.

The Center for Biological Diversity and several allied groups announced they plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its failure in designating protected caribou habitat in northern Idaho and northeast Washington. When the agency proposed setting aside over 375,000 areas in 200, opposition from recreational snowmobilers and others resulted in the agency cutting that protected acreage down to about 30,000, and while a federal court ordered Fish and Wildlife to reconsider, no decision has been issued as yet.


A female mountain caribou from the beleaguered Southern Selkirks herd feeds in a wet meadow in the southern Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, Aug. 8, 2017.