Caribou herds and populations in Canada

The boreal forest of Canada[10] is the vital habitat of the endangered subspecies, the boreal caribou. The survival of boreal caribou depends on maintaining "large unbroken swaths" of the forest to protect the animals from their predators. The boreal forest—which is not monolithic but a patchwork—sweeps through parts of all provinces and territories except Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.[10] It covers approximately 25% of Canada's total landmass—270,000,000 ha (2,700,000 km²; 1,000,000 sq mi)—and consists of "swamps, bogs, meadows, forests of different types — including hardwoods and conifers — and the rivers and lakes that tie them all together".[10] It represents 75 per cent of the nation's forests.[10][Notes 3]

The boreal woodland caribou are the largest caribou in Canada.[11] They have the darkest coloured fur and their boreal forest habitat stretches from Newfoundland to British Columbia in an irregular distribution.[11] Most boreal woodland caribou are not migratory. Some populations, especially those that inhabit mountainous regions, like the Central Mountain population in British Columbia and Alberta, the Southern Mountain population in British Columbia, the Eastern Migratory population of Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Torngat Mountains population of Nunavut, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northern Mountain caribou, move with the seasons to different elevations.[11]

Caribou crossing Leaf River

The forest-tundra ecotype of migratory woodland caribou, the George River caribou and the Leaf River caribou, migrate between forest and tundra.[11][12]

In southern Labrador and northeastern Quebec, the range of three herds of sedentary woodland caribou, the Lac Joseph herd (LJH) 59,000 km² (23,000 sq mi), the Red Wine Mountains herd (RWMH) 46,000 km² (18,000 sq mi), and the Mealy Mountains herd (MMH) 28,000 km² (11,000 sq mi) is bounded on the north by the George River herd, which is a migratory forest-tundra caribou (migratory ecotype).[13]^:20 In the winter the multiple herds intermingle when the George River herd "enters the outer portions of the sedentary caribou ranges.[13] The Lac Joseph-Atikonak Lake area is as a major calving and summering area for the Lac Joseph Woodland Caribou herd.[13]

Eastern migratory caribou herds include four subpopulations such as the George River herd.[14] The George River caribou are woodland caribou and are one of four subpopulations of the Eastern Migratory herds of caribou in northern Canada. The herd’s range extends through Labrador and Northern Quebec (Labrador Woodland Caribou Recovery Team, 2004).[14]^:18

The cross boundary South Selkirk mountain caribou, a woodland mountain caribou, an ecotype of the boreal woodland caribou, had roamed the southern end of the Selkirk Mountains crossing the border between British Columbia, Canada and northern Idaho, eastern Washington, in the United States. They were the last naturally occurring caribou herd in the contiguous United States.[15][16]

In 2009 the herd of 50 animals was declining, by April 2018, only three remained,[16] According to David Moskovitz, author of Caribou Rainforest: From Heartbreak to Hope in 2019, the "last member of the last herd to regularly cross into the lower 48 states from Canada", a female, was moved in January 2019, a captive rearing pen near Revelstoke. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced in its scientific journal, Science, that British Columbia's provincial biologists had captured the female caribou in Canada in the hopes of "preserving highly endangered herds".[17][18]

By 2019, the Southern Mountain Caribou South Selkirk herd was extirpated (locally extinct).[19][20] Caribou herds can be found from the High Arctic region south to the boreal forest and Rocky Mountains and from the east to the west coasts.[2]

In their August 2008 scientific review and, Environment Canada established that in order to monitor and manage the boreal caribou's recovery, they would use "local population range" as the "relevant spatial scale for the identification of critical habitat" because "habitat conditions within boreal caribou ranges affect their survival and reproduction."[21][22] This includes the spatial configuration, quantity, quality of habitat that local population need to survive.[21][23][22]^:ii In 2008, there were "57 recognized local populations or units of analysis for Boreal caribou in Canada."[21]^:iii The 2008 report described three measurable criteria for monitoring caribou habitat population trend—Declining (D), Stable (S), Increasing (I) or Unknown (U), population size—Very Small, Small, or Above Critical, and range disturbance— Very Low, Low, Moderate, High or Very High.[21]^:v

By 2018, the boreal woodland caribou had 51 herds,[24] and the Southern Mountain Caribou population had 15.[25] By 2019, the Southern Mountain Caribou South Selkirk herd was extirpated (locally extinct).[19]

In Québec's, the small herds of the Atlantic-Gaspésie woodland caribou in the Gaspésie's isolated "alpine habitats on mountain plateaus" are designated on SARA's Schedule 1 as endangered with fewer than 120 adults in 2014 with an anticipated date of extinction of 2056. They were once widespread with a habitat that spanned New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Their numbers decreased with development including forest management models that increased the populations of their predators like the Eastern Coyote and black bear.[11]

In British Columbia "Herd plans are currently being developed for each of the 54 herds in B.C."[26]

The most abundant caribou with are the migratory barren-ground caribou which consist of huge herds that migrate annually to and from their natal grounds taking routes that are usually predictable.[11] Barren-ground caribou are "slightly larger and darker".[11] In Canada major barren-ground herds include the [Notes 4] Porcupine caribou herd, Cape Bathurst herd, Bluenose West herd, Bluenose east herd, Bathurst herd, Ahiak herd, and the Dolphin Union herd. Because they migrate to the tundra, both the Leaf River herd and George River herd are often included with the barren-ground caribou.[27][Notes 5]

The Bluenose East-Bathurst caribou, (southwest of Kugluktuk), are cross-border caribou herds, with migrations that bring them into both Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. In 2016, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board with the endorsement of the Government of Nunavut developed a "community-based caribou plan" for Kugluktuk that limited harvest to 340 caribou. In 2019, government representatives from Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Kugluktuk MLA Mila Kamingoak, biologists from the Nunavut and N.W.T., representatives from N.W.T. First Nations groups, Nunavut hunters and trappers organizations including Kugluktuk Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO) worked together to improve management of the Bluenose East-Bathurst caribou herds.[28] In 2016, although both Nunavut and N.W.T. governments opposed mining exploration on Bluenose East caribou calving grounds, the project went ahead.[7]

Gwich’in in the Northwest Territories have hunted Bluenose East and Bluenose West barren-ground caribou ( R. t. granti) herds and the Porcupine caribou herds (R. t. groenlandicus) from time immemorial. The word for caribou in the Gwich’in language, which is part of the an Athabaskan language, is tradivadzaih.

The range of the Bathurst caribou herd range "extends straight north from the northern edge of Saskatchewan to the Arctic coast and eastward across the north side of Great Slave Lake.[29]

The Bathurst caribou herd has suffered a dramatic decline from a record number of about 470,000 in the mid-1980s to only 8,200 in 2018.[30] By 2003 there were 186,000 and by 2009 there were 32,000.[30] As a result, the Government of Northwest Territories (GNWT) imposed a hunting ban for resident and outfitter hunters in 2010. The people of Wekweètì were still allowed to hunt a total of 150 animals, until the winter of 2015 when GNWT imposed a total hunting ban for all hunters. As the population continued to decline, the Tłı̨chǫ Government responded by introducing its own ban on hunting the Bathurst herd in October 2015. Caribou hunting is an important channel for the practice of Tłı̨chǫ culture and way of life on the land. The ban on hunting has created much hardship for families who usually rely on caribou as the main food source. Now they need to rely on the monetary system and financial support to buy store bought food."[31]^:44

"Between 2015 and 2018, the number of breeding cows dropped by almost 40 per cent to about 3,000 animals."[30] In a February 2018 Science Advances journal, concerns were raised about the decline of the Bathurst caribou herd caused by disturbance of "key parts" of their range as governments of the Yukon and Northwest Territories have been opening access "for mining exploration and development" since the early 1990s. The mineral exploration "led to the loss and degradation of key habitat for caribou" which has exacerbated the herd's decline. Researchers described the policies that explicitly support private mining interests at the "expense of Indigenous cultures and livelihoods", as a tragedy of "open access". It is "unfolding particularly in the Bathurst caribou range, where caribou numbers are at critically low levels and mining activity has boomed since the early 1990s."[32]

In 2019, the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories pledged $61 million towards the construction of a 640 kilometre-long road "connecting Yellowknife to the Arctic Coast to open up mining in the Arctic".[29] The road which cuts through thawing permafrost and the calving grounds of the Bathurst caribou herd, will benefit the Chinese state-controlled mining company—MMG Limited.[29]

According to the official Canadian government site, the Dolphin-Union caribou are unique and while they resemble the Peary Caribou, they seem to be genetically related to Barren-ground Caribou.[11]

Caribou calving grounds, 1983–2001

The Porcupine Caribou herd (PCH)—R. t. granti—in northwest Canada and northeast Alaska migrate 1,500 miles (2,400 km) annually from their winter range in the boreal forests of Alaska and Yukon northwest Canada over the mountains boreal forests to their calving grounds on the Porcupine River coastal plain on the Beaufort Sea.[33] The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) draft 2018 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) said that in order to reduce the vulnerability of the Porcupine Caribou Herd (PCH) and Central Arctic Herds (CAH) adaptive mitigation had to be undertaken in "[a]ll lands in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain are recognized as habitat of the PCH and CAH and would be managed to ensure unhindered movement of caribou through the area."[34]^:2–11

Caribou calves are born in the first week of June and they are at their most vulnerable from their primary predators on the calving ground - golden eagles, grizzly bears and wolves - during the first three weeks when they are dependent on milk from their mothers. About one quarter of them die during this period.[35]^:5,6

In February 2019, veteran researchers Don Russell and Anne Gunn, submitted their commissioned report to the Governments of Canada, Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories—signatories to the 1987 International Treaty for the Porcupine herd. They undertook a "science-based risk assessment for how vulnerable the Porcupine Caribou herd (PCH)" is to the proposed oil and gas development of 1002 lands (Coastal Region) in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge."[36]

Caribou herd ranges

Porcupine caribou's (R. t. granti) 1,500 miles (2,400 km) annual land migration between their winter range in the boreal forests of Alaska and northwest Canada over the mountains to the coastal plain and their calving grounds on the Beaufort Sea coastal plain,[33] is the longest of any land mammal on earth. In 2019, the herd size was 218,000 compared 100,000 in the early 1970s.[36]

The Porcupine herd has "supported people for thousands of years as well as being a key driver in the mountain and coastal arctic food web".[36]^:6[37][38] The herd's annual range is contained within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1980 by the US Congress. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) included Section 1002 which "identified a need to assess the oil and gas potential as well as the wildlife values". The 1.57 million acres Coastal Plain had not been included in the ANWR's wilderness designation. In this report we refer to the area covered by Section 1002 of ANILCA as “1002” lands.[36]^:6

The smallest North American caribou are the Peary caribou (R. t. pearyi) that live on the Canadian High Arctic archipelago islands. Their fur is the lightest colour. Habitat suitable for their survival is very limited.[11] The estimated population of the Peary caribou was about 13,000 adults in 2016, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC."[39]

Southampton Island caribou are Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus. Like Coats Island caribou, they have no predators on the island.

In January 2012, a Government of Nunavut's wildlife biologist, Mitch Campbell, said that the Southampton Island Caribou, on the island at the mouth of Hudson Bay, was threatened with disease and overhunting.[40] Southampton Island caribou numbers "declined from about 30,000 caribou in 1997 to 7,800 caribou in 2011, representing a drop of almost 75%."[41] In July 2012, the Government of Nunavut set an "annual harvest limit of 1,000 caribou" in response to an urgent request from the Coral Harbour Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO).[41][42] The hunt has become unsustainable as orders for caribou from the island was being flown as country food to places like Iqaluit.[40] After being hunted to extinction in the 1950s, the herd was "re-established when 50 animals were transplanted there in 1968."[40]