Mountain caribou protection not good enough: coalition

Mountain caribou are receiving further protection from snowmobilers, predators, and the logging industry, announced the B.C. government recently, but the Mountain Caribou Project — a coalition of about 10 environmental organizations — says the protections are insufficient.

The coalition has issue, in part, because due to a mapping error, the government is only protecting about 25,000 hectares of priority habitat in the Cariboo Chilcotin instead of the original recommended 48,000.

B.C.’s mountain caribou are the world’s southernmost population and the only remaining population that lives in rugged, mountainous terrain. All other similar populations that existed throughout the world are now extinct.

Listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act and red-listed as endangered or threatened in B.C., the mountain caribou in B.C. have declined from approximately 2,500 in 1995 to 1,900 or fewer in 12 herds today.

On Feb. 19, Environment Minister Barry Penner announced the government is limiting disturbances to the animals in a large portion of the province’s mountainous back country.

Closures under the B.C.’s mountain caribou recovery plan, which include previously protected areas, will now put more than two million hectares off limits for logging and road building and one million hectares of alpine caribou habitat out of reach for snow machines in the B.C. Interior.

The plan is to restore the mountain caribou population to what it was prior to 1995 throughout their existing range in B.C.

Regulation amendments to prevent snowmobile disturbances to mountain caribou and regulations to protect the animal from timber harvesting and road building disturbances are now in effect.

The recovery plan directed that certain actions be taken to protect the caribou, including:

• protecting 2.2 million hectares of mountain caribou range from logging and road building, which would capture 95 per cent of the caribou’s winter habitat and lead to an increase of about 380,000 hectares of protected forest within the mountain caribou range;

• managing human recreational activities in mountain caribou habitat in a way that ensures critical habitat areas are effectively protected;

• managing predator populations of wolf and cougar where they are preventing the recovery of mountain caribou populations;

• managing the primary prey of caribou predators;

• boosting caribou numbers in threatened herds with animals transplanted from elsewhere to ensure herds achieve critical mass for self-sufficiency;

• supporting adaptive management and research, and implementing effective monitoring plans for habitat, recreation and predator-prey management; and

• instituting a cross-sector progress board to monitor the effectiveness of recovery actions.

But the Caribou Mountain Project says protections against mineral exploration development, snowmobiling and heli-skiing in critical habitat are still outstanding, risking the caribou’s future recovery.

The Caribou Mountain Project (www.mountaincaribou.org) includes Forest Ethics, Wildsight, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Conservation Northwest, Fraser Headwaters Alliance, BC Nature, North Columbia Environmental Society, the Quesnel River Watershed Alliance, Shuswap Environmental Action Society, and the Sierra Club.

Chris Blake, project manager for the Quesnel River Watershed Alliance, explains the government’s science team originally recommended 48,000 hectares of high-suitability caribou habitat in the Cariboo Chilcotin to be protected, but due to a mapping error, only about 25,000 hectares are being protected.

“This has to do with critical habitat that was missed in this region,” Blake says, adding that instead of the government correcting the error, it said the approximate 25,000 hectares was enough to recover the caribou in the region.

Blake says that with the short-fall, there’s not adequate protection to meet the government’s original commitment to long-term management objectives of “natural self-sustaining” status.

“They’re basically being cheated out of a lot of habitat in this particular region,” she says. “The success of the recovery plan is if the animal gets recovered, and that the government follows its commitment and follows all the science based recommendations, because really it’s about the extinction of an animal. It’s about science. It’s not about politics.”

Included in Blake’s concerns is the continuing threat of snowmobilers, which she says the government hasn’t fully addressed yet.

The government has been working with snowmobile clubs, signing management agreements to control riding areas. Some of those areas, Blake says, are still within the recommended areas of closure.

In addition, many of the areas closed to snowmobiling are strictly volunteer closures, a measure which Blake says has been proven ineffective at keep riders out.

“It’s pretty clear that snowmobiling and caribou don’t mix,” Blake says, adding that biologist reports state that snowmobilers are displacing caribou out of their critical habitat, which in turn places them at a higher risk.

The coalition says that while the government has now legally designated more land for caribou recovery, the ministry hasn’t fully enacted or provided enforcement for snowmobile closures deemed necessary by herd experts to recover the animals.

“The government has drawn the lines and legally designated areas where no logging or road building is to take place, and we applaud them for that,” says John Bergenske of Wildsight. “But they need to ensure that snowmobiling and industrial development are outside of those lines.”

Also included in the strategy is predator control, another aspect that raises concerns among the group.

“It appears to be easier to manage wolves than it is to manage ourselves, and that’s not the goal,” Blake says. “You can’t look at one issue — it’s all the issues. Not only that, no one wants to see you just managing wolves. It’s just not acceptable.”

A representative from the Ministry of Environment has yet to provide the Tribune with further information on the strategy, including predator control, as requested on Feb. 19. But according to a ministry report that Blake provided to the Tribune, the ministry captures both cougars and wolves in order to radio-collar them. Cougars are removed, and wolves are either removed or sterilized.

In some areas, the report says, the government is coupling wolf-reduction with fertility control to reduce or limit wolf packs to a sterile alpha pair in order to reduce predation rates on caribou.

Because the wolves must be drawn to an area to radio collar, sterilize, or remove them, large-bodied animal carcasses are required. While the ministry uses road-killed moose wherever possible, the government also uses livestock carcasses, such as cattle or horses, donated or bought from a variety of sources.

In the winter of 2007/08, the Williams Lake Ministry of Environment office purchased a total of 15 horse carcasses, seven from local First Nations that were free-ranging, and then captured and euthanized by the First Nations people; one horse from a First Nations rancher; four ranch horses from a local rancher; and three pack horses from a guide outfitter.

The ministry, the report says, doesn’t use poison to kill horses or any predators.

It also says the government is considering exemptions in designated protected areas for forms of industrial development, such as road building for the mining industry. 
The project is also asking the government to boost caribou numbers in threatened herds and ensure that any activities within designated habitat support the recovery goals and require a caribou biologist’s review of any development.

“With the information that we have, we have the ability to protect this animal, and are we going to step up and do it? There’s no one else out there that’s going to save the animal from extinction,” Blake says. “The world’s [caribou] population is in our backyard, so really it’s our responsibility as a community and as a province.”

It is illegal to hunt, trap, wound or kill any endangered species including mountain caribou. The maximum fine for a conviction under the B.C. Wildlife Act is now $500,000, up from the previous $150,000 maximum, following amendments introduced by the government last year.

Penalties can also include imprisonment for up to three years, up from the previous maximum of eighteen months.