Mountain Caribou
One of BC's most threatened species - can it survive more habitat loss?
Less than 2,000 mountain caribou exist in the world, 98% of which live in British Columbia. Found in both the upper Goat River and the Bugaboo Rainforest, mountain caribou are heavily reliant upon this moist old-growth ecosystem for raising their young, protecting themselves from predators and foraging for food.
A Bugaboo Rainforest National Park would protect critical Mountain Caribou habitat. Photo credit: Michael Wheatley
In particular, mountain caribou depend on arboreal lichens as a critical winter food source. Because lichens grow very slowly, only very old forests provide the abundant lichens needed to nourish caribou over harsh winter months.
According to a 1999 BC Wildlife Branch report, “Because caribou are so well-suited to the ecological conditions in the inland rainforest…they can be considered a flagship species of this area. No other large animal has a distribution so closely tied to this region.”(6)
The ongoing destruction of this rare ecosystem through logging, hydro and other development has seen the mountain caribou range shrink by 60%. Sadly, the younger forests which emerge after logging upset the natural balance by bringing deer and moose into the area, which in turn brings in predators such as wolves and cougars.
Government 2002 census results show serious declines in BC’s 13 mountain caribou herds. Of great concern is the fact that several mountain caribou herds are now at critically low levels. The population of some herds has declined by more than 50% between 1994 and 2001.(7) These herds are in imminent danger of disappearing from the landscape altogether.
As an indicator species the mountain caribou is a canary in the coalmine and it is telling us that the ecosystem in which it lives is being destroyed and fragmented to such an extent that it can no longer support a species that has depended on it for thousands of years.
