Biologists Losing Battle To Save Dwindling Caribou Herd Count Is Lowest Since 1984 Listing As Endangered Species
A steady signal emerged from the static.
“This is 408 here,” said Jon Almack, checking the radio frequency, then peering through the window of the small aircraft pitched at a 45-degree angle over Kootenay Pass.
The beep-per-second signal is a sound Almack, a Washington state wildlife biologist, likes to hear.
A signal twice as fast would have meant that “408,” a radio-collared caribou, was dead.
That’s a loss the Selkirk mountain caribou can’t afford.
The latest population estimate for the herd is the lowest it’s been since woodland caribou were listed as an endangered species in 1984.
Last winter’s census turned up only 34 caribou, and two weeks ago one radio-collared caribou was found dead.
The Selkirk herd is home to the last caribou in the Lower 48. At one time, woodland caribou also inhabited Maine and the Great Lakes region. The Selkirk herd used to outnumber deer and graze in the Tacoma Flats along the Pend Oreille River. By the 1950s, an estimated 100 remained.
Now, biologists have implemented a zero-tolerance policy for caribou predators and are considering a captive breeding program in a desperate bid to keep the tiny herd alive.
“When you get down to 30 animals, you’re done. You’re really done,” said Jim Hayden, North Idaho Wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, at a recent meeting.
“To solve this problem, you need a massive infusion of information,” he said. “It’ll take 30 years to gather the data. Meanwhile, the caribou have disappeared.”
Almack and other biologists working with woodland caribou suspect last winter’s count missed a few animals. So the coming winter’s census will be crucial to determine the status of the herd.
In the meantime - despite a keen awareness of how complex the problem is - the wildlife rescuers aren’t quitting.
The Selkirk herd traverses the mountain tops between Canada, Washington and Idaho, wintering on the ridges and feeding on lichen.
Woodland caribou are distinct from northern caribou, which inhabit Alaska and the northern region of Canada. A Canadian study is under way to determine whether they’re genetically distinct.
Woodland caribou also thrive in old-growth forests, where Old Man’s Beard lichen dangles from trees and deer are scarce. In the spring, they seek out snowfields to give birth.
Woodland caribou prefer high elevations, possibly to avoid predators. Deer, a more abundant food source for cougars, tend to stay in the lower elevations.
But if snow is the caribou’s friend, fire is their enemy.
As pilot Dave Parker skirted the top of Continental Mountain, the Coeur d’Alene Interagency Fire Dispatch Center broadcast its fire forecast. Almack pointed out the burn scars on Trapper Peak, scorched in 1967.
“If we get another one like that, it’ll wipe out caribou,” he said.
But Parker and Almack weren’t fire-spotting. They were listening for caribou and one of its more common enemies, cougars.
Biologists started trapping and collaring cougars in 1998 to get a better handle on cougar kills and their general habits. Last summer, one tomcat killed three caribou. “Mr. Nasty,” as he was dubbed, was then shot by wildlife agents in British Columbia.
“They only get one chance,” said Tim Laysor, a wildlife biologist with the Priest Lake Ranger District. “He was doing what a cat does. Unfortunately, it’s unacceptable, because we have a lot of cats and not very many caribou.”
There’s no simple answer to the cougar problem. The loss of old-growth habitat means that deer and caribou are sharing more of the same terrain. Plus, whitetail deer populations are up, attracting more cougars to the area.
But limiting deer numbers, or cat numbers, alone might just worsen the caribou’s plight in the short term, experts say.
The current strategy is to keep a close eye on the 18 lions that are collared and recover any killed caribou as quickly as possible to determine the cause of death.
And to keep the herd from disappearing entirely, a multiagency caribou steering committee that guides recovery efforts is asking Canada to provide more caribou to transplant into the Selkirks.
Six transplants have brought 103 caribou to the Selkirks. The last transplant was 11 animals in 1998.
But Canadian caribou may no longer be available. Like their state-side cousins, British Columbia’s caribou are threatened by loss of old-growth forest, predators and snowmobiles.
“A lot of people tend to look at Canada and say, `They’ve got lots of caribou’,” said Suzanne Audet, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service caribou expert. “But theirs are taking a nosedive, too.”
This year, the B.C. caribou were “red-listed,” a status of heightened concern. They were also listed as threatened by Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife.
Canada’s Purcell Mountain herd has shrunk from more than 100 to 35 animals in the last five years, which means that it may become a higher priority than the Selkirk herd for transplants, said Rick Marley, of B.C.’s Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks.
Any new transplants are most likely to come from a coastal B.C. herd that’s estimated to be 2,500 strong.
Canadian wildlife officials are forging ahead with a plan to start a captive breeding program with the help of a private philanthropist.
Gordon Blankstein runs the Mountain View Farms Conservation and Breeding Centre near Vancouver, B.C., which has a full-time veterinarian on staff. The center focuses on breeding exotic cats and endangered ungulates, such as Algerian sand gazelle and Bactrian camel, from around the world. The purpose of the breeding program is to guard against extinction of rare species.
Blankstein has offered to cover all the facility and breeding costs of the operation, and half the costs of capturing and transferring caribou, Morley said.
The U.S. has been asked to participate financially, with the understanding that the Selkirk herd could benefit from the program.
But the steering committee for Selkirk caribou recovery hardly can scrape together enough money for the radio telemetry flights, let alone captive breeding.
The downward trend in caribou numbers is paralleled by a downward trend in funding.
In 1998, the federal funds that Idaho and Washington receive for caribou recovery totaled $273,000. In 1999, the amount was $217,000, and in fiscal year 2000, it was about $214,000.
Idaho’s share of those federal funds is for all endangered species in the Selkirks, so only about 35 percent goes to caribou recovery efforts.
“In 1995 and 1996, we had an elevated level of funding to take care of those augmentation efforts (caribou transplants), but the last couple of years, the funding has dropped back,” Audet said. “We’re trying to spread our funding too thin.”
Other agencies are feeling the pinch, too.
“Our budgets are dwindling,” said Laysor, the U.S. Forest Service biologist. “You can barely get the minimum job that needs to get done.”
An estimated total of $4.7 million has been spent on caribou recovery efforts since the species was listed.
The financial crunch has limited caribou research on a local level, but it’s also jeopardized the availability of Canadian caribou for transplant.
In a letter to the U.S. Government Accounting Office, which investigated the Selkirk caribou recovery efforts last year, the director of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks expressed concern about the U.S. caribou program. Future transplants will depend on the strength of B.C. caribou populations, he wrote.
“Any further transplants from B.C. will also depend upon a clear signal on definite resolve from the United States to recover the southern Selkirks caribou population,” he wrote.
The GAO report, which had been ordered by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, concluded that the recovery effort had made modest gains, but suffers from inadequate funding.
Craig requested the audit because of complaints from Boundary County residents that the government was wasting its money on saving caribou. Biologists counter that without the transplants and expense, the caribou would already be gone.
This year, Almack came up $45,000 short on money needed to continue radio telemetry flights through the summer, when predation is at its worst. The state of Washington and the U.S. Forest Service managed to kick in more money and the Selkirk Priest Basin Association recently raised $16,700 to help pay for flights.
The association has embraced the caribou cause. Director Guy Bailey vowed that all the money the group raises for caribou will go toward caribou recovery and research, not his organization’s overhead.
The group is launching an adopt-a-caribou program. Bailey also envisions a marketing blitz to raise money that includes plush toys and T-shirts. And to Almack’s dismay, the campaign will likely capitalize on the caribou’s similarities to reindeer.
“It’s not a Santa Claus reindeer program. That’s not the way it is,” Almack groused. “If that’s the case, we should come up with Fuzzy the Grizzly.”
Even without the yuletide connection, caribou are no less fascinating to Almack. Still, he doesn’t bother naming his subjects anymore.
“I had one flight where we had four dead caribou,” he said. “By the time we got used to the names, they were dead.”