Author: Skye Cunningham (BAPC), Communications Specialist with Cabin Resource Management
The Central Selkirk herd of Southern Mountain Woodland caribou is the last remaining southernmost herd in Canada. This herd has decreased by 87% since the 1990s from over 200 animals to 28 animals in 2021.
Woodland caribou are a species at risk under the BC Species at Risk Act. Many factors have contributed to their decline including predation, habitat changes and fragmentation, climate change, and backcountry recreation activities.
In an effort to recover the population, a Government Action Regulation (GAR) order was created in 2009 which protects approximately 320,000 hectares of range for caribou (this is 95% of the core winter habitat of the Central Selkirk herd).
Further recovery actions needed to be taken, as the population was continuing to decline. So, 10 years later in 2019, 300 community members in Nakusp came to a series of public forums to discuss local caribou recovery efforts.
The Arrow Lakes Caribou Society was formed as a result of these public meetings in early 2019. ALCS is a non-profit headquartered in Nakusp comprised of interested individuals, and organizations from a wide variety of industries including backcountry recreation, forestry and mining, hunters and trappers, community forestry, trails groups, and local government.
The society’s goal was to provide a local voice in recovery efforts, land use decision-making, and further action to protect the Central Selkirk caribou herd. The board of directors includes foresters, biologists, loggers, a wildlife photographer, and a local trapper. The board and their projects are advised by regional, provincial, and US biologists and veterinarians.
The main recovery effort that the Arrow Lakes Caribou Society oversees is the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen near Nakusp. The maternity pen acts as a protected area for female caribou to bear and raise their calves away from predators until the calves are less vulnerable to predation.
The maternity pen has operated for two years (construction was done from 2019 to 2022) with the first capture of animals being in March 2022.
In 2023, nine adult females, four female yearlings, and one male yearling were captured from areas north of Nakusp in drainages along Trout Lake and in the Central Selkirk range. One adult female was translocated from the Columbia South herd near Revelstoke, as the last remaining animal of that herd.
During capture, one yearling succumbed to acute pulmonary arrest (due to regurgitation during transport).
A total of 14 animals were successfully captured and cared for in the pen until July 2023. The adult females birthed seven male calves and one female calf while in the pen between June and July. With the exception of one male calf being quite small and needing intensive veterinary care, the calves were healthy.
The one male calf who was small at birth and required intensive veterinary care, was suspected to have not received enough colostrum from his mother in the early days of his life. Although he improved with veterinary care outside of the pen, he was still too small to be released with the rest of the herd a few weeks after he was born.
ALCS and the wildlife veterinarians who work with us elected to transfer him to the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops for further care. The other calves, female adults, and yearlings were released in July 2023.
ALCS is looking forward to another year of capture in March 2024, and hopes that many more (female) calves are born in the maternity pen this year!
For more information:
Arrow Lakes Caribou Society Website
and follow the Arrow Lakes Caribou Society on Facebook!
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