“We’ve know for decades that logging, road-building and uncontrolled recreation in mountain caribou habitat is slowly killing off our caribou herds...”(Wildsight Conservation Coordinator)

Woodland Caribou update (Jan2019)
and then there were none…

... we are mourning ...

April 2018: We are...mourning the tragic loss of all but three of the South Selkirks caribou herd and are again calling for immediate and full protection for all critical mountain caribou habitat in BC.
Wildsight.ca

January 14th, 2019:  the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, reports two cows and one bull caribou, the last of the southern Selkirk and Purcell herds, were captured and taken to maternity pens in Revelstoke.
Even though provincial officials say they have no current plans to remove caribou habitat protections for the southern herds, common sense and past government behavior makes that entirely unbelievable.
In fact, the timber companies must be eagerly waiting as they gather to divide up the land that was previously protected for caribou habitat. And of course, whatever other creatures inhabit those spaces: grizzly, wolverine, etc will also be further compromised.

...wildlife can suffer in the same way humans can.

The logic was expressed elegantly by an early ethicist: Jeremy Bentham famously asked,

"The question is not, 'Can they reason?' Nor, 'Can they talk?' But, 'Can they suffer?'"

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/hunters-to-protect-our-social-licence-we-have-to-stop-killing-animals-we-dont-eat/article37701186/

photo: J.Lawrence Kootenay Reflections

Ann Sherrod and Trevor Goward ask "Are we ready for, or can we even grasp, the damage done when one of the world's wealthiest nations knowingly annihilates an iconic animal and, in the same gesture, walks away from its global responsibility to biodiversity?”

Canada is dangerously close to annihilating an iconic animal found nowhere else in the world – the deep-snow caribou of south-eastern British Columbia, emblem of mountain fastness. At issue is the ongoing loss of old-growth forests to industrial logging.

Read the entire article here:
http://ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=how-deep-snow-caribou-plunge-extinction-reveals-Canada-conservation-hypocrisy

jim lawrence © kootenay reflections

Caribou feet - specially designed for their terrain: Hooves with four special toes help distribute their weight over snowy terrain to act like snowshoes. And the sharp edged hooves easily break through crusts of snow as they dig through to access the lichen that sustains them.
(Photo: jim lawrence © kootenay reflections)

jim lawrence © kootenay reflections. used with permission

This photo is from 2008.  All of these caribou are gone now, extirpated from the land.
(Photo: jim lawrence © kootenay reflections)

Jim Lawrence stated that "these caribou were photographed above Salmo, his ancestors would have frequented your local Glade forest."
Jim strives to present wildlife images that instill understanding of our fragile wilderness, and inspire respect for life in endangered ecosystems. http://kootenayreflections.com https://twitter.comIntheSelkirks                                                   

Below from: https://thenarwhal.ca/forestry-industry-climate-denial-tactics/

The caribou are supposed to be protected by the Species at Risk Act, which came into force in 2003 and requires provincial and federal governments to protect habitat and develop recovery plans to avoid localized extinction. But all over Canada, these tactics have delayed habitat protection, and caribou numbers continue to drop.“All the ways that industry and government try to shoot the messenger, discredit science, discredit the scientists, and then sow doubt and confusion, and buy time, are rote,” said Mark Hebblewhite, associate professor of ungulate habitat ecology at the University of Montana, who happened to be on the peer-review panel for Boan’s paper. “There’s nothing new here.”
He recites the playbook he’s heard in his work on caribou conservation in Canada: “No 1. Caribou aren’t declining. But if they were declining … it’s not caused by humans. And even if it has to do with humans, it’s because of climate change.”                                                                                                                              Erica Gies

Access roads with no oversight...
The photographer observed in Feb 2018:
A well traveled snowmobile road leads past the 'NO SNOWMOBILING' signs on this road into caribou habitat. A few kilometres to the north fourteen snowmobile pickups were parked, having traveled up a different road into the caribou habitat. A few kilometres to the south huge fresh clear cuts have laid permanent waste to the caribou habitat.

And the BC government states that wolves are the predators.

“We’ve know for decades that logging, road-building and uncontrolled recreation in mountain caribou habitat is slowly killing off our caribou herds,” says Eddie Petryshen, Wildsight’s Conservation Coordinator. “Protecting intact habitat in our mountain rainforest ecosystems is the only way to give our southern caribou herds a chance to survive, but our federal and provincial governments have been dragging their feet for years, ignoring the ongoing destruction of mountain caribou habitat.”


Fewer than 250 mountain caribou remain in the Kootenay and Columbia area...
“The federal government has mapped the mountain caribou habitat that is necessary for the species’ survival, but they have only protected portions of it,” says Bergenske. “This tragic loss of all but three caribou in the South Selkirks herd has to be a wake-up call for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna to act on her responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to protect all critical habitat right now. This is an emergency and our mountain caribou can’t wait any longer for planning without action.”


Southern mountain caribou, a unique ecotype who live in the inland temperate rainforest of B.C.’s southern interior, feed exclusively on tree-growing lichen in the winter, and need old growth forests to survive. Caribou are not just extremely sensitive to disturbance from motorized recreation, but packed winter trails in their habitat make them more vulnerable to predators.
Mountain caribou herds in BC have been declining for decades as the impacts of logging, industrial activity and recreation spread over the mountain backcountry, leaving isolated herds with nowhere left to run. BC’s Mountain Caribou Recovery Implementation Plan, after more than a decade, has failed to stop the loss of caribou, let alone recover populations.

Wildsight article: wildsight.ca/blog/2018/04/12/only-three-caribou-left-in-south-selkirks-herd/