'It’s game over': Last 'Grey Ghost' caribou herd down to 3

[Gone_Fishin]

Has there been a wolf reduction program in place, ever? Or in the last decade? Two?

Yes. Both at Tumbler Ridge and in the South Selkirks in the past couple of years. The herds stabilized. In the 1980s, large scale wolf reduction programs were in place, and all ungulate populations benefited. Political will to follow science is often lacking when emotions guide public opinion.

[Queen K]

What is going on in Wells Gray Prov Park then, are there wolves there? No wolf kill in Provincial parks?

[Gone_Fishin]

What is going on in Wells Gray Prov Park then, are there wolves there? No wolf kill in Provincial parks?

Loads of wolves in that area. They've decimated ungulate populations in the North Thompson.

[Queen K]

What prevented a wolf kill, say for the last 16 years?

[Gone_Fishin]

What prevented a wolf kill, say for the last 16 years?

There were wolf kills in 2015 and 2016.

[Queen K]

Not enough wolves were harvested out if the caribou can't make a come back. Or is it also habitat loss? So maybe it's not solely due to the increased wolf populatioin that they are decimated. Could there be disease factors or the young ones simply aren't making it through the Winters?

[Rwede]

Not enough wolves were harvested out if the caribou can't make a come back. Or is it also habitat loss? So maybe it's not solely due to the increased wolf populatioin that they are decimated. Could there be disease factors or the young ones simply aren't making it through the Winters?

Habitat loss is a factor. But as mentioned, habitat restoration will come too late for caribou. We need to act immediately with a wide scale wolf reduction program, or face extirpation of caribou herds.

Wolves have to be targeted with >75% reductions every year for at least 5 years if there is to be a reduction in numbers. Anything less is infilled with rampant breeding. They are extremely prolific.

Targeted trapping, 1080, and aerial gunning of wolves are the only methods that will result in meaningful benefits for caribou.

I want a future with both caribou and wolves. Targeting wolves in caribou recovery areas won't extirpate wolves in BC and will give caribou a chance. Failing to target wolves in caribou recovery areas will extirpate caribou, guaranteed. The choice is clear.

[maryjane48]

Habitat loss is a factor. But as mentioned, habitat restoration will come too late for caribou. We need to act immediately with a wide scale wolf reduction program, or face extirpation of caribou herds.

um loss of habitat is the main reason, and for someone claiming to be a hunter animal lover you seem to not know facts. the days of killing off a animal to protect another instead of altering human actions are done.

its humans that need to be managed not wolves

[Rwede]

um loss of habitat is the main reason, and for someone claiming to be a hunter animal lover you seem to not know facts. the days of killing off a animal to protect another instead of altering human actions are done.

its humans that need to be managed not wolves

You've got 14 caribou and 10 hungry wolves.

You've got logged areas that need to be regrown for 100 years to provide habitat for the 14 caribou.

What are you going to do for 100 years to protect the 14 caribou?

[maryjane48]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.4384261


The province is conducting what it is calling an "urgent intervention" to keep B.C.'s South Selkirk mountain caribou population alive.

Researchers believe there are either 11 or 12 individuals left in B.C., among them four or five females.

Holger Bohm, the fish and wildlife section head for the Kootenay region, said that a "maternal pen" is now being set up to protect young caribou from predators when they are at their most vulnerable.

The caribou calves will remain in the enclosure until they are about one month old, at which point they'll be free to leave the pen area.

"We're really addressing the critical period [when] the newborn calves can't follow their mothers quite yet," he said.

"We're trying to take that early predation out of the equation to give newborns a fighting chance."

[oneh2obabe]

The last remaining herd of cross-border mountain caribou is now effectively extinct after an aerial count found only three survived the winter, all of them female.

The alarming census of the South Selkirk population of southern mountain caribou, placing it at a number meaning de facto extinction, comes after years of warnings from scientists and conservation groups.

Government biologists twice did the head count this spring, once in ideal conditions in fresh snow to help tracking from above, and found the alarming decline, said Mark Hebblewhite, a Canadian wildlife biologist at the University of Montana and a science adviser to the federal government.

“Last year there was 11 and now there are three. And critically, there are no males this year. Without a male, it’s game over.”
The South Selkirk herd has the distinction of being among the southernmost caribou in the world and last to roam into the lower 48 states of the United States, making it a big deal south of the border where it is seen as a species extinction.

Balance of article
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/its ... all-female

[stuphoto]

That is sad to read about.

With all the caribou I saw shot in the NWT over the last 5 years that I have worked up there I would almost be surprised if the entire species doesn't just vanish during my lifetime.

[techrtr]

What a shame. I wonder what caused the population to decline.

[Fancy]

What a shame. I wonder what caused the population to decline.

As noted in the article:

The causes are multiple: natural predators, overhunting, climate change, loss of old growth forest and disturbance of their habitat by human activity — from logging and oil and gas development to snowmobiling.

[bob vernon]

Species have come and species have gone forever. Their habitat changes. Include mankind's activity in those changes. We've deforested the lower elevations and have driven the predators higher and higher to find food. The predators like caribou. Steelhead salmon like clean water. Our logging activity causes a lot of silt to wash down and bury the eggs of steelhead, and other salmon species. We're warming the environment by pumping a lot of carbon into the air. The earth gets warmer and some species just can't adapt.
Doesn't the Bible give man dominion over the animals? We're just excercising our dominion over the animals of the world. If we extinguish some species and we then alter our environment so that the population of humans then declines also, well then, it's just God's will.