Endangered caribou will not be moved to zoo
Zoo refuses to take herd after heated backlash
MONTREAL • Instead of ending their days ogled by tourists and schoolchildren in a zoo, an endangered herd of Quebec caribou will remain in the wild.
On Tuesday, the Zoo sauvage de St-Félicien said it was rescinding its offer to house the caribou, citing a sharp public backlash against the proposed move and a newly published environmental report concluding the province had not adequately studied the herd’s prospects for survival in the wild.
Christine Gagnon, director of conservation and education at the St-Félicien zoo, said public opposition had been mounting since the Quebec government announced in April its plan to use a helicopter to chase and capture the roughly 15 remaining members of the herd outside Val d’Or, Que. They were then to be transported to the zoo, 375 kilometres to the east.
“We wanted to help these animals,” Gagnon said, noting part of the zoo’s mission is to educate the public about wildlife conservation.
“Because of the social pressure and lack of acceptance, we decided to withdraw from the project,” she said. “We have a reputation and credibility that we want to protect.”
An environmental review panel studying a mining project in the Val d’Or region reported last week it was premature to declare the herd is headed for extinction. The panel said the caribou are in a critical state, and it recommended a study on the herd’s viability conducted by independent biologists.
Environmental groups have accused the province of abandoning its responsibility to protect endangered species in favour of forestry and mining development.
Henri Jacob, president of l’Action boréale, who has been lobbying for the caribou for 35 years, applauded the zoo’s decision. But he said it would take “a miracle” for the animals to survive.
Loggers, sportsmen and ATV-riders have so encroached on the herd’s habitat it is unlikely to recover.
“I think if they’re lucky they have another 10 years but not much more than that,” he said.
If the government was serious about giving them a chance, it would close human access to the roughly 1,200-square-kilometre habitat that sustained the herd in the 1980s. The current protected area is just 434 sq.-km. (At the zoo they would have been inside a wooded nature park of less than four.)
The government estimates there are between 6,000 and 8,600 woodland caribou left in various pockets of Quebec boreal forest. Distinct from the migratory caribou of northern Quebec, whose herds number in the hundreds of thousands, the boreal woodland caribou have been designated as a threatened species in Quebec since 2005.
In Quebec City Tuesday, Luc Blanchette, Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, acknowledged the government did not conduct any studies before deciding to move the herd. But he said the herd is doomed.
“Is it going to happen in 15, 20 or 25 years? We don’t know. But we are not going to intervene,” he said, according to a report in Le Devoir.
Jacob said he prefers a herd of sacrificial caribou to one deported out of sight and out of mind without any guarantee of survival.
“We want these animals to remain in the region and for the government to recognize its errors in forest management and endangered species management,” he said. “Otherwise we worry that other herds of boreal caribou will suffer the same fate.”