Caribou are interesting animals in my opinion. The only time I have ever observed caribou in the wild was in the spring of 2014. I took this video out on a frozen lake when it was -20ºC but the strong winds made it more like -35ºC. Needless to say, the camera shook a bit even on the tripod! You might want to turn down the sound!
When I moved up to the NWT in 2010, people had been talking about caribou for eight years already and there was a lot of controversy around the government’s decision to put a moratorium on guided caribou hunting.
Caribou were confirmed as Threatened by COSEWIC and added to the federal list of Species at Risk in 2002. The number one threat to caribou is habitat alteration (loss, degradation or fragmentation) as a result of human land-use activities. The second largest threat is predation And thirdly habitat alteration as a result of wildfire, climate change/severe weather.
More and more actions are being taken to try and prevent the disappearance of this incredibly important animal and this year a number of Aboriginal organizations who rely on caribou for food have cancelled their traditional hunts in an effort to help numbers improve.
It’s sad to watch a species such as the caribou who have roamed the earth for hundreds of thousands of years disappear before our eyes. I moved to the NWT from British Columbia where the mountain caribou herd have been decimated by logging and mining activity. The BC government tried to blame caribou decline solely on wolves and instituted a wolf cull that has resulted in thousands of apex predators being killed with little to no impact on caribou numbers.
Backcountry recreation and habitat fragmentation from logging have split the herd into tiny pockets of land which are still being exploited by heli-ski operations, snowmobilers, and ATV users. I have little faith that the BC government will be able to save the mountain caribou and we will watch that species disappear likely by the next generation.
So what do we do? What is the best way to protect species at risk without losing out on the economic benefits of industry? Is it possible?