Santa's hooved helpers endangered
Luke Jones of Youth Radio reports on the perils facing mountain caribou, a species of reindeer, including logging, development, and climate change.
Most people associate reindeer with Christmas. What they don't realize is reindeer are in danger of becoming extinct.
One of the many species of reindeer at threat is the mountain caribou. Mountain caribou are the southernmost of all types of reindeer and inhabit British Columbia in western Canada. Joe Scott, a conservationist with Conservation Northwest, says mountain caribou have been in decline for decades.
"They are very closely tied to old growth forests," he said. "And so as those forests are fragmented by logging, development, those kinds of things, those caribou become very susceptible to predation."
But now caribou face a bigger threat: climate change.
"They're definitely vulnerable to...climate change, especially if it changes...the degree of precipitation in their habitat. Unlike their cousins in the north, they actually go higher in the wintertime, and they use the snow as a platform to feed on the lichens that grow in old growth trees," said Scott.
In the last 50 to 100 years, Scott says mountain caribou have lost more than half of their natural habitat.
"It's really unconscionable given what we know and given the value of these animals to human society from the standpoint of being linked with quality of life, the richness, and the diversity that we pass on to our children and they are in turn able to pass on to theirs. It's a sad testament to the degree to which we are or we're not stewarding this planet for future generations."
Reindeer can be found in Scandinavia, Russia and parts of North America. Scientists with the United Nations Environment Program in Norway, say that by 2050, seventy to eight percent of the Arctic will be developed. The outlook looks grim for Santa's hooved helpers.
