‘Writing on wall’ for Lake Superior caribou
Ministry’s delays have put threatened herd at further risk, First Nation warns
Anorthern Ontario First Nation says the provincial government has taken too long to implement a plan to save one of Ontario’s southernmost caribou populations from being wiped out entirely.
The woodland caribou population on Michipicoten Island, a provincial park near the northern shore of Lake Superior, has declined since four wolves ventured onto the island by way of an ice bridge during the winter of 2013-14.
The following winter, officials with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry captured the wolves, put radio collars on them, and released them back onto the island.
“They (MNR officials) decided to run a study on a threatened species,” said Leo Lepiano, Michipicoten First Nation’s lands and resources co-ordinator. “The writing has been on the wall since the study began.”
Art Rodgers, a ministry research scientist and caribou expert, said “there was no need to interfere” at the time because there were lots of caribou on the island.
The ministry estimated there were 450 caribou in 2014 on Michipicoten Island.
By last fall, there were no more than 100, a ministry spokesperson said, but based on the number of caribou kills in December, Lepiano estimates there could be far fewer today.
The wolf population, meanwhile, has grown. In 2016-17 there were11or 12 wolves on the island, ministry spokesperson Jolanta Kowalski said, adding that the population size will be reassessed in the near future.
All the while, government researchers have been studying predator-prey interactions, caribou conditions and the ecological integrity of the island, she said.
Last year, officials became concerned about the state of the caribou population.
Now, in an effort to help re-establish the population, the government will move some caribou by helicopter from Michipicoten Island to Slate Islands, about 80 kilometres west on Lake Superior, where caribou numbers have also declined.
Although Kowalski said the province is aiming to move the caribou in mid-January, Michipicoten First Nation is concerned that could be too late.
Rodgers said the MNR has been waiting for the ice to thicken, to ensure it’s safe to land the helicopters and have caribou and people out on the ice during the translocation.
Conditions are starting to look good, he said earlier this week.
When the day arrives, caribou will be captured using a net gun shot from a helicopter, Rodgers explained.
The caribou will then be hobbled (legs tied), blindfolded, sedated and placed into specially designed bags that leave only their heads uncovered before being loaded into the transport helicopter, all under the watch of a veterinarian and handlers who will monitor the animals’ health and keep them safe.
At Slate Islands, the vet will reverse the caribou’s sedation, which Rodgers said is “fairly mild,” and monitor their recovery.
The number of caribou that will be moved hasn’t yet been finalized, he said.
The range of woodland caribou in Ontario has declined significantly, but Lake Superior was historically “the heart of caribou country,” said Lepiano, who has worked for Michipicoten First Nation for almost a year and noted he is not Indigenous.
The Ojibway who lived in the area relied heavily on the caribou for both food and warm pelts, he said.
Caribou were present on Michipicoten Island until the late 1800s, when it’s believed that they were killed off by people in the mining camps, said Gord Eason, a former Ministry of Natural Resources biologist.
Eason was involved when the ministry helped reintroduce caribou to the island in the early 1980s, with a starting population of eight. It was about three decades later that the four wolves — males and females — crossed over from the mainland.
There were some concerns before the wolves arrived that the caribou population on Michipicoten Island was growing too large for the habitat to sustain it, said Eason, the former ministry biologist.
“But we know from the size of the island that you can’t just throw a breeding group of wolves on there and expect any kind of an equilibrium to occur — it just can’t happen,” he said.
Before he left the ministry in 2011, he recommended putting two samesex or sterilized wolves on the island to keep the population in check.
Today, he’s concerned about the future of Lake Superior caribou, as is Rodgers, who noted the population probably has been at risk for three decades.
It was a surprise that the Slate Islands’ caribou population had declined significantly over the past few years as well, Rodgers said, noting that when the wolves arrived on Michipicoten Island, ministry officials thought they’d have the Slate Islands’ population as a backup.
Although two wolves had also made their way to the Slate Islands, Rodgers said it’s also possible some of the caribou may have moved to the mainland.
Any ice bridges that form are “twoway streets” and caribou aren’t afraid to swim, he noted.
Michipicoten First Nation and Eason want the ministry to relocate caribou not only to Slate Islands — where the ministry says there are at least two to four bulls (male caribou) remaining — but other islands in the region as well to give them the best chance for survival.
Although Kowalski said ministry officials have found the other islands to be “unsuitable” for caribou over the long term, Eason suggested “sometimes you don’t have the opportunity to pick your most-desired locations when you have a situation like this.”
“When you’re dealing with this threatened species on the edge of being extirpated, you don’t always get to pick the grade A habitat.”
Once a breeding caribou population is re-established on the Slate Islands, Rodgers said that population could be used to help restore caribou numbers on the mainland or Michipicoten Island if that population continues to decline.
Eason and Lepiano are concerned the wolves could wipe out the remaining caribou on Michipicoten Island, but Rodgers isn’t so sure the wolves are to blame.
“There’s no scientific evidence . . . there’s just correlation, which is not causation,” he said.
The question on Michipicoten Island is whether the wolves will be able to sustain themselves on beaver as the caribou numbers decline, he said. If they can’t, the wolves could die off before the caribou do.
“The writing has been on the wall since the study began.” LEO LEPIANO LANDS, RESOURCES CO-ORDINATOR OF MICHIPICOTEN FIRST NATION