Editor’s note: Jasper is home to three herds of Southern Mountain caribou: the Tonquin, Brazeau, and À La Pêche herds. A fourth herd, the Maligne, was last observed in 2018 and is considered extirpated (locally extinct).
This information was made public in Jasper National Park’s 2019 annual report, and recently added to the Park’s website at www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ab/jasper/nature/conservation/eep-sar/caribou-jasper
Dear editor,
The Maligne caribou herd has gone.
Present Parks Canada staff have the unenviable task of announcing to Canadians that a herd of caribou in one of their premiere national parks no longer exists.
I believe the fault lies with the senior staff, both in Jasper and Ottawa, over the past 50 years who ignored their own wardens, ignored the concerned biologists with the Canadian Wildlife Service and ignored the regional and national conservation groups.
Caribou are having a tough time right across Canada but that should have been all the more reason to give them as much protection as possible in a national park. To quieten criticism Parks commissioned three studies but then ignored any of their recommendations that would have meant altering human use of the landscape.
The Maligne Road was kept plowed in winter even though it was an open invitation to wolves to access prime caribou habitat around Maligne Lake. Where the road stopped at the lake, Parks then track-set for skiers right up into the Bald Hills. When one superintendent did venture to close the road on an experimental basis in 2002 opposition was virulent in Jasper and Ottawa and the order was promptly rescinded.
From then on various very unpopular closures of the Bald Hills in winter were tried. Dogs were disallowed and for the past four years no skiing was allowed in the area from November until the end of February. Anyone caught crossing the barrier was charged and fined.
It was too late. If they had closed the road 40 years ago the herd might have been saved. It had the advantage of remaining in a national park all year round, its habitat was more or less intact and it could have stayed isolated in the deep snows that were its protection from predators.
But it was not to be and the Maligne has lost one of the most beautiful, ethereal members of the deer family. It has bowed out silently and left the sadly impoverished land to us.
Jill Seaton
Jasper, AB
