With their total numbers falling below 100 within Jasper National Park and several herds on the verge of complete collapse, Parks Canada is considering several new methods to bolster the population of caribou in this region and throughout the mountain parks, including a new captive-breeding program in partnership with the Calgary Zoo.

In Jasper, specifically, there are three herds whose territory is entirely or primarily within the park boundaries. The 55-strong Tonquin herd lives west of the townsite, while the much smaller Maligne and Brazeau herds make their homes to the east and south.

“The Maligne herd has about six animals left, the Brazeau, roughly 10,” said John Wilmshurst, an ecosystem science co-ordinator with Jasper National Park. “Those are not sustainable numbers. Without some type of intervention those herds will almost certainly be extirpated.”

And so, as part of its larger Woodland Caribou Conservation Strategy, Parks Canada has plans to start breeding caribou in captivity and introducing the young into failing herds like these.

The idea is to capture dozens of caribou from wild herds in British Columbia over a period of two years and move them to a ranch facility south of Calgary, operated by the Calgary Zoo. By the third year of the proposed program, the first yearlings bred in captivity would be removed from the ranch and introduced to herds in the wild.

“We would use the offspring to augment herds like the Maligne,” said Greg Fenton, superintendent of Jasper National Park.

This kind of herd augmentation has worked well with other species, Fenton added, but it has rarely been tried with caribou.

There is an agreement in principle between Parks Canada, the province of British Columbia and the Calgary Zoo to begin the captive-breeding program, but Parks is first gathering public feedback on the idea, as well as its overall caribou strategy.

“We’re looking for feedback from people on whether they’re generally supportive of the concept of a captive-breeding program for herd augmentation,” Fenton said.

Parks is also looking for broader feedback on other parts of the strategy, which could include actions which would affect Jasper residents and visitors alike, including altering the access to roads or trails. The road to Mount Edith Cavell, for example, is used in the winter by skiers but also by wolves, giving the predators easy access to the Tonquin herd’s territory.

 “So, how do we reduce the likelihood of wolves using those transportation corridors in the winter – basically ski trails – into caribou habitat and then posing risks to caribou?” Fenton said.

Other actions could include temporary or permanent trail closures, changes to fire control programs and changes to speed limits along the Icefields Parkway, Fenton added.

“It’s a range of things,” he said. “It’s not just any one action.”

It’s also not a quick process. Wilmshurst said the typical period for gauging the success of population augmentation efforts is three generations of a species.

“The generation time for caribou is about seven years, so we’re talking roughly 20, 21 years,” he said. “So you’ll know you’re successful after that. You’ll know you failed quicker.”

There is already some source of optimism for the caribou, he added. The Tonquin herd, while on the decline in recent years, is still theoretically large enough to sustain itself, and its population may be on a positive trajectory.

“We had a really good calf crop and so if those calves can survive the winter, then it bodes well for the population next year,” Wilmshurst said. “But we’ll have to wait and see in the spring.”

The current Woodland Caribou Conservation Strategy can be seen in more detail at www.parkscanada.gc.ca/caribou, where you can also find on online feedback form. Parks Canada will be accepting public feedback on the strategy until Jan. 31, 2012.