Quick Facts about Woodland Caribou

1. Issues

• Caribou have been in decline in Alberta since the 1970s; situation is now critical;

• A recent study out of the U. of Alberta (P. Weclaw) estimated that caribou will be eliminated from Alberta in less than 40 years if current trends continue;

• Some herds, like the Little Smoky herd in the foothills north of Hinton, could be lost in next decade.

2. Why caribou are important

• Caribou are an indicator of the health of our forests, our canary in a coal mine;

• For a species like caribou, a national symbol, to be lost from Alberta is unconscionable, a symptom that something is seriously wrong with how we are managing our forests;

• This is not the legacy that Albertans want to leave to future generations. Years from now we are not going to remembered for balancing our budgets, rather, we will be remembered as the generation that wiped out caribou.

3. What can be done

• Scientists have been studying these animals for decades, so the problems and solutions are well known.

• The root problem is unrestricted and uncoordinated industrial development, which is changing the very nature of our forests. In any given area, even the far north, you are likely to have a forestry company cutting down hardwoods, another forestry company cutting down softwoods, a petroleum exploration company cutting seismic lines, other petroleum companies drilling wells and laying pipelines, and all of these companies building roads. Thousands of km. of roads. Moreover, all of this development is happening without coordinated planning or limits on cumulative impacts, which is leaving the landscape in a real mess, and species like caribou paying the price.

• The way forward is being blazed by a few progressive companies. These companies have initiated a variety of pilot projects to test new practices that reduce long-term ecological impacts to an absolute minimum. We know that full protection of some core habitat areas will also be required to maintain caribou.

• What is missing from the equation is leadership from the government, which has been so focused on promoting industrial development that it seems to have forgotten it is also charged with stewardship of the environment. For example, we have known for decades that caribou are in trouble, yet a recovery plan has still not been implemented. A balance between economic and ecological objectives needs to be achieved, and way to do this is clear: integrated planning, limits on cumulative impacts, and protection of high priority wildlife habitat.

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