If we don’t shoot wolves, we’ll lose caribou: The dilemma of saving endangered deer

CThe endangered Anada Mountains reindeer are making a surprise comeback, reversing years of decline that has pushed the population to the brink of collapse. But researchers warn that any sustained recovery comes with a problem: To save these ungulates, thousands of wolves will need to be killed in the coming years, underscoring the difficulty of wildlife managers trying to manage complex ecosystems Task.

Mountain caribou, an ecotype of woodland caribou, once ranged from Alaska to Montana and Idaho, have experienced catastrophic declines over the decades. Experts have long identified widespread habitat degradation and increased predation by wolves as the main causes of these losses.

To researchers, the idea that wolves are to blame for caribou extinction is often wrong. Logging has done even more harm to the caribou’s prospects, removing the animals’ main refuge and food source. When vegetation sprouts from scars in the landscape, the newly opened spaces also attract moose. The moose then attract the cunning predators wolves, who soon realize they have a much higher success rate (and less danger) in tracking the caribou.

But the effects of this predation are clear: Between 1991 and 2023, the number of caribou in the southern mountains declined by nearly 50%. Governments and Indigenous groups have been trying to stem the decline in recent years, with mixed success.

To understand what actions and policies work, researchers scoured more than half a century of data on 40 cattle herds in British Columbia and Alberta. They looked at all possible combinations of interventions, including reducing the presence of other mammals, such as moose, which attract wolves.

Their study, published in the journal Ecological Applications, found that wolf culling was the only restoration operation that consistently increased mountain caribou population growth. Importantly, the team noted that results improved even more when combined with maternal enclosure or supplementary feeding.

The result is a rare piece of good news: By 2023, restoration operations have increased southern mountain caribou populations by 52% compared to simulations without intervention. When predation pressure on wolves decreases, biologists see wolf populations increase rapidly. As a result, the two provinces currently have 4,500 reindeer, 1,500 more than would have been possible without the intervention.

The findings appear to run counter to previous papers questioning the effectiveness of wolf culling, highlighting the challenges of managing caribou populations that exist in tight ecosystems.

Governments have legislated for reindeer and Experts agree Restoring woodland ecosystems to their former state of towering old-growth trees amid dense, impenetrable forest trails will have a huge impact on restoration efforts. But it will take decades, and the reindeer are running out of time. During this period, killing wolves was considered the best solution.

Clayton Lamb, one of the report’s co-authors, told The Canadian Press that if we don’t shoot wolves, we will lose the caribou given the habitat conditions that industry and governments allow. It’s not the wolf’s fault.

Culling remains highly controversial. In 2020 and 2021, 824 wolves were slaughtered in Alberta. Since 2015, 1,944 wolves have been killed in British Columbia, resulting in more than $10 million in losses.

Lamb said shooting a wolf to save another species is an extremely difficult decision.