Parks Canada urged to extend Jasper backcountry restrictions to save caribou

Environmentalists and scientists are calling on Parks Canada to further restrict access to Rocky Mountain backcountry in an effort to help save the last large caribou herd in the national parks.

“There's lots of evidence that winter closures help caribou,” said Gillian Chow-fraser of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

Chow-fraser is asking Parks Canada to extend winter closures of the Tonquin backcountry in Jasper National Park. Tonquin's alpine valleys are home to a herd down to about 10 breeding females.

The area is currently closed between November and Feb. 15.

Chow-fraser said that's not enough. Even tracks from backcountry skiers provide enough of a path for wolves to get into the herd's winter range.

“(There's) overwhelming evidence ... of how wolves use linear features, driving caribou declines everywhere in the country.”

Mark Hebblewhite, a University of Montana biologist with long experience in the Canadian Rockies, said the Tonquin caribou are nearing the same brink other herds have already toppled over.

The Banff and Maligne herds, two of five in the Jasper-banff area, are gone. The Brazeau herd is down to about six animals and the only reason the la Peche herd is healthy is the extensive wolf cull on its habitat outside the park.

“That leaves the Tonquin,” Hebblewhite said. “Inside the parks, it's pretty grim.”

Parks Canada acknowledges caribou are in decline. The agency is hoping to shore up the herds with a captive breeding program, in which females from nearly vanished herds would be penned and bred.

In a 2017 report, it called the Feb. 15 closure date arbitrary and “a compromise to stakeholders.”

Wolf predation is decreasing in Jasper, said Rola Salem, spokeswoman for Jasper National Park. She said fewer incursions into caribou habitat have been documented.