JASPER – The last surviving breeding female of the extirpated Maligne caribou herd may have been killed by a wolverine.
Parks Canada officials say they can’t confirm the exact cause of death with 100 per cent certainty, noting the woodland caribou carcass had been buried in snow for quite some time.
“There is speculation that it may have been preyed upon by a wolverine, but we can’t really confirm her cause of death,” said Dave Argument, resource conservation manager for Jasper National Park.
“We are fairly confident, that within our wolf monitoring information, that wolves have not been visiting the alpine in the Maligne and preying on caribou in recent years.”
In October 2017, DNA evidence and observations in Hardisty Pass indicated that the endangered Maligne herd had four members, made up of an adult female called C118 and three sub-adult animals.
Five months later, in March 2018, the collared adult female, who was 10 years old at the time, was found dead.
It was unknown how many other caribou remained, but tracks and scat at the site offered evidence that other caribou were present with the collared female.
“There were signs at the time that there had been other caribou in the immediate area when we visited her carcass,” Argument said. “But since that time we haven’t seen any sign of caribou persisting in Maligne.”
Parks Canada conducted six aerial surveys between winter of 2018-19 and now, including a final search two weeks ago looking for any signs of caribou in the Maligne range.
“They have turned up no results,” said Argument. “We’re fairly confident now in our assessment that they are actually gone.”
More than 800 caribou ranged in the mountain national parks 25 years ago. Today, fewer than 220 animals remain.
In late summer, Parks Canada quietly announced on its website that the Maligne herd was gone and two other herds under the federal agency’s responsibility – the Tonquin and Brazeau – are too small to recover on their own.
The extirpated Maligne herd experienced its most rapid decline between 1998 when biologists counted 68 caribou, and 2005, when the herd was made up of less than five females and 10 animals in total.
The Tonquin herd is estimated to have 45 caribou and the Brazeau herd has an estimated 10 animals. Both of these herds have fewer than 10 breeding females.
“We expect those herds to persist in the near-term, short of some calamitous event like the 2009 avalanche that took out the remaining Banff animals,” Argument said.
“One terrible event that knocks out the whole herd is always a possibility, but the Tonquin herd with 45 animals, there’s no reason to believe that in the immediate-term that herd will disappear; their prospects are certainly not good long-term.”
To that end, Parks Canada continues to look at a captive breeding program as the best path forward for saving endangered caribou, by rounding up wild caribou and breeding them in captivity. It has been considering this option for more than a decade.
In 2011, the federal government announced a partnership with the Calgary Zoo for a woodland caribou captive breeding program supporting protection of caribou in the mountain national parks.
Touted as the cornerstone of its strategy for caribou conservation, the program came to a halt when the Calgary Zoo pulled out, citing a lack of funding and support from Parks Canada.
At that time, the cost to construct a captive breeding facility was pegged at between $2 million and $3 million, with operating costs estimated between $300,000 and $500,000 per year.
Argument said a feasibility study on captive breeding has now been sent to a group of experts for feedback, due by the end of the year. Depending on the results, funding would need to be explored.
“Bringing animals into captivity and then breeding them in captivity, and then releasing these captive animals back into a wild herd is probably our best chance of success,” he said.
Parks Canada has ruled out direct translocations from other herds because there isn’t a herd of genetically appropriate animals large enough to sustain moving animals from already precarious herds.
A maternity penning option also appears to be off the table, with Parks Canada saying calf survival is not the main concern for Jasper’s herds; rather it’s the low population size of the herds.
If a captive breeding program gets the go-ahead, Argument said the first step would be to rebuild the Tonquin and Brazeau caribou herds to self-sustaining numbers.
“If we undertake that and we find ourselves to be successful, then the long-term goal would be to reintroduce animals into the Maligne,” he said.
Reintroducing the Banff herd – which had all five members wiped out in an avalanche near Molar Creek north of Lake Louise in 2009 – isn’t a top priority at this point.
“The focus needs to be preserving and protecting the animals that still persist on the landscape,” Argument said.
“If we find that this is the right tool for the job here, then yes, I wouldn’t say the northern Banff herd is entirely off the table.”
Parks Canada acknowledges there is an urgency to boosting Jasper’s caribou numbers, but at the same time, the agency wants to make sure captive breeding has the best chance of success.
If approved, this would be the first caribou breeding program, and it would see a facility built outside the Jasper townsite, with caribou released into the wild within four to five years from then.
“We only have one shot … there aren’t enough animals for us to make a mistake on this,” said Argument.
“I also know that there are not enough animals on the landscape for us to delay too much longer.”
The Alberta Wilderness Association wants to see Parks Canada’s detailed plans for caribou conservation made available for public review.
Carolyn Campbell, AWA’s conservation specialist, said captive breeding is something the conservation organization doesn’t typically condone.
“We’re way out of our comfort zone … but within a national park we do feel that there is good range that could be viable for caribou and that it’s really important for Parks Canada to not let these populations slip away,” Campbell said.
“We’d like more information and to see if it’s viable and also ethical, and by ethical I mean we do need to match this dire wildlife manipulation program with responsible human use access management, which we feel has lagged.”
Specifically, AWA calls for continued annual backcountry restrictions from Nov. 1 to Feb. 28 and to find new ways to reduce road impacts and other human-caused range retractions on the Brazeau caribou herd.
For the Tonquin herd, the conservation organization urges Parks Canada to close the Tres Hombres ski runs at Marmot Basin ski resort, adding the 2017 approval of those runs disregarded scientific findings and are inconsistent with Tonquin caribou recovery.
AWA also wants Parks Canada to find ways to reduce the Tonquin backcountry trail access and to reassess lodge operations that currently open from mid-February to mid-October in prime caribou calving, summer and winter habitat.
“We have no time to waste,” Campbell said.
Parks Canada points to seasonal closures covering 3,200 square kilometres in important winter caribou habitat that came into effect on Sunday (Nov. 1).
The purpose of these closures is to prevent people from creating trails that wolves can use to prey on caribou in places that are otherwise inaccessible. Research shows that trails packed by backcountry skiers, snowboarders, and snowshoers can lead wolves to prey on caribou in high elevation areas where caribou go to avoid predators.
However, with the extirpation of the Maligne herd, boundaries of the winter caribou habitat closure in the Maligne Range will change for the 2020-21 season.
This means that winter access to some terrain in the Bald Hills and the area between Big Shovel and Little Shovel Passes is no longer restricted.
Argument said this would be assessed if caribou are ever observed in the Maligne in future.
Based on Parks Canada’s knowledge of caribou movements and where the existing herds spend their time, Argument said it would be unlikely that caribou show up in the area again.
“We think that the possibility of natural movement back into the Maligne is absolutely minimal,” he said.
“If that does happen, we are committed to reassessing and reimposing those restrictions within 48 hours.”
