Pregnant caribou penned to protect expected calves
A herd of conservation groups has rounded up 12 pregnant caribou cows in a bid to protect their newborn calves.
It’s expected the first calves will be born by May 20, with all delivered by mid-June. The mothers and babies will remain in the ninehectare enclosure until mid-July, when they will be released.
Pregnancy rates for mountain caribou are consistently high, but calf survival rates are low. The Columbia North herd has declined substantially since 1994, when 210 were recorded, to fewer than 150 caribou. This herd has been stable since 2013, but the same can’t be said for others in the Selkirk, Purcell, Monashee and Rocky mountains.
“Essentially, for caribou, most calves won’t make it to their first year,” said Kelsey Furk of the Revelstoke Caribou Rearing in the Wild Society.
“The most is 20 per cent will survive, with most issues in the first month, when they’re fairly small and vulnerable to predation. With this herd, 40 per cent of the calves from last year were alive this March.”
This is the fourth year of a fiveyear pilot project that has added a total of 27 calves into the wild. Of those, 15 were still alive 10 months after release. Some calves died in the pen, with others killed after release. The project aims to at least double the survival rate of wildborn calves and begin to increase the population.
To protect the animals, volunteers, veterinarians and wildlife experts team up to build an enclosure in the North Columbia Mountains. In early April, caribou are captured using a net fired from a helicopter. The animals are then hobbled, blindfolded, sedated, and transported inside a helicopter for anywhere between five and 20 minutes to the pen. There they are weighed and tagged, and veterinarians take blood and hair samples for genetic testing and tracking.
The caribou are also fitted with satellite-linked radio collars, so Parks Canada can track their movements for 10 months after they are released from the pen.
“It all happens in one 14-hour day,” said Furk. “It’s quite an operation. We have roughly 25 staff and volunteers and the project is very collaborative.”
The society is a partnership of Parks Canada, Revelstoke Community Forestry Corp., North Columbia Environmental Society, Splatsin First Nation, Mica Heliskiing, Revelstoke Snowmobile Club, the B.C. government and the Columbia Mountains Caribou Research Project.
Under the federal Species At Risk Act, all woodland caribou populations in Canada need special management because of declining populations.
“This is one tool for conserving caribou,” said Furk. “There are other programs but our group focuses on this one aspect. It’s enough.”