Culling wolves helped boost caribou herds, new study says

Fresh research suggests Western Canada's once-dwindling caribou numbers are finally growing.

But the same study concludes the biggest reason for the rebound is the slaughter of hundreds of wolves, a policy that will likely have to go on for decades.

“If we don't shoot wolves, given the state of the habitat that industry and government have allowed, we will lose caribou,” said Clayton Lamb, one of 34 co-authors of a newly published study in the journal Ecological Applications.

“It's not the wolves' fault.” Caribou conservation is considered one of the toughest wildlife management problems on the continent.

The animals, printed on the back of the Canadian quarter since 1937, require undisturbed stretches of hard-to-reach old-growth boreal forest. Those same forests tend to be logged or drilled, creating roads and cutlines that invite in deer and moose — along with the wolves that eat anything with hoofs.

Between 1991 and 2023, caribou populations dropped by half. More than one-third of the herds disappeared.

Governments, scientists and First Nations have been trying for years to find ways to bring them back. Lamb and his colleagues looked at 40 herds in British Columbia and Alberta to see if anything has worked.

The study suggests caribou numbers have risen by 52 per cent since about 2020 compared with what would have occurred if nothing had been done. There are now 4,500 in the two provinces, about 1,500 more than there would have been.

“There could be some actual good news,” Lamb said. “It was surprising, in a good way.”

The ranges of some herds are nearly 90 per cent disturbed by industry, and habitat restoration is the preferred solution.