The captive breeding program Parks Canada has touted as the cornerstone of its conservation strategy for southern mountain caribou has lost a major partner, putting the program’s future at risk.
The Calgary Zoo—which was meant to house the program—has announced that it is no longer involved, citing funding as the primary reason for its decision.
In a statement, the Calgary Zoo wrote, “We concluded that the funding proposed by Parks Canada put too much of the financial burden on the Calgary Zoo at a time when we have many other conservation and flood recovery priorities.”
The program’s parameters were never fully finalized, according to Larissa Mark, a spokesperson for the zoo, but “the zoo felt the project could only be successful with a multi-million dollar investment and 10-year commitment from the federal government.”
The captive breeding program was first announced in 2011 as part of the Conservation Strategy for Southern Mountain Caribou in Canada’s National Parks. It was meant to be a collaboration between Parks, the Calgary Zoo and the Government of British Columbia. The plan was to take caribou from healthy populations in B.C. and breed them in a holding area away from the main zoo grounds.
Then, over the course of about four years, young caribou born in the facility would be added to the struggling herds in Jasper, Mount Revelstoke and Glacier national parks at a rate of about 15 animals per year. They would also be reintroduced into Banff National Park, which lost its last remaining caribou to an avalanche in 2005.
In February, Supt. Greg Fenton told the Fitzhugh that the captive breeding program hinged on Parks’ ability to secure funding. At the time, he indicated that the funding would likely come from the corporate sector and mentioned oil and gas as industries that had expressed interest in providing financial support.
Despite repeated requests, Parks did not provide an interview for this story.
Jasper’s caribou herds, which fall within the Central Mountain unit, are down to critically low numbers and have been for years.
When last counted, there were five in the Maligne herd, six in the Brazeau and 30 in the Tonquin.
The Central Mountain unit is considered the most dire of Canada’s caribou ecotypes, having lost 60 per cent of its population in the last 10 years.
In fact, earlier this year the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) increased the status of Central Mountain caribou from threatened to endangered.
At that time, Parks listed the captive breeding program as one of many conservation initiatives it was undertaking to bolster Jasper’s caribou population.
But the question is, would it even work?
Not everyone’s so convinced.
In an interview last week, COSEWIC’s Justina Ray referred to the program as an experiment that “couldn’t—especially by itself—serve as a recovery measure.”
“We lull ourselves into thinking that we can fix everything that’s broken, but caribou have been showing us that everything we’re doing so far isn’t working. I’m skeptical about these types of measures, which are increasingly costly and risky.”
Ray has three major concerns with the captive breeding program. First, she said there’s an issue with transferring animals from one area to another, because—although they’re not a different species—there are genetic differences between caribou that live in Jasper and B.C., for instance.
“They have different adaptations arising from local ecological factors,” she said. “One big, key difference between the east and the west side of the Rockies is that on the west side there’s very deep snow and that gives rise to different feeding strategies from those that live on the east side of the Rockies where snow is shallower.”
Another difference is the kind of threats caribou face depending on where they live.
“Where that has a real bearing on this particular issue is if you take a caribou from one ecotype with certain local adaptations and you put them in another one ... they’re not going to be very well equipped to survive.”
This was seen in 2012 when B.C.’s Ministry of Forests and Lands transferred 19 caribou to the Kootenays from northern B.C. Within seven months, 15 of the animals had died from accidents, predators and undetermined causes.
Ray’s second concern is that the same threats that caused caribou populations to decline in the first place still exist today, so even if the breeding program were to succeed in rearing caribou, the animals would be set up for failure once they were released.
“The threats that have caused the declines in the first place, have not been alleviated at all, so you’re essentially putting an animal back into a place that is just as hostile to it and the survival of its population as it was when its predecessors met their demise.”
Some of those threats, which Parks has been working to diminish, include changes in predator/prey dynamics, increased human disturbance, habitat loss, predator access and the small population effect—the tendency for small caribou populations to continue declining.
“And then there’s the problem of robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said Ray.
In other words, in order for the program to work, caribou from other regions would have to be removed from their own habitat and relocated to the zoo.
“There aren’t that many healthy populations that are really that robust and can afford that kind of removal,” she said.
Parks is currently reviewing its caribou conservation actions.
In June, Environment Canada released the Recovery Strategy for Woodland Caribou, Southern Mountain Population in Canada, outlining goals for recovery of Southern Mountain caribou.
The strategy identifies critical habitat and describes activities that could result in the destruction of that habitat.
According to a document released by Parks on Oct. 29, new caribou conservation measures are forthcoming.
“Under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, Parks Canada now has a legal obligation to implement caribou critical habitat protection measures by Nov. 28, 2014.”
The document also indicates that the agency will be communicating “any changes as soon as possible.”
Caribou have been a hot button issue in Jasper for years.
The Jasper Environmental Association has been pushing for greater conservation efforts for the Maligne and Tonquin herds since the early 90s. One of its requests has been that Parks close Maligne Lake Road, as well as other pieces of the park, during the winter to protect caribou from wolves, which are known to use ski tracks to access prey in alpine areas.
In 2013, Parks did extend some winter closures, and added others, to protect caribou from just that, but to the chagrin of the JEA, Maligne Lake Road remains open year-round.
With Jasper’s caribou increasing in status to endangered earlier this year, it’s no surprise that further conservation efforts are looming. Now it’s just a waiting game to see how far Parks will go to protect these iconic creatures.
The risk, of course, is angering the backcountry users, who live and play in the Maligne Valley all winter long.
But, on the other hand, the risk is losing the last of Jasper’s caribou.
Nicole Veerman
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