As with all things, the wolf cull is just one piece of the equation. It is a controversial topic, so gets the most attention, but is not the whole story.
The maternal penning project is helping by putting some pregnant cows into a pen where they are safe from predation, so that they can calve and raise their calves in safety, but are also fed so that they have proper nutrition until they are released in July. The calves are strong and healthy enough to be able to escape most predators under normal circumstances by then. The local herd has grown from about 60 to almost 100 strong in the last 5 years.
Oil and gas development is only a part of the industrial disturbance that has affected the caribou habitat, but gets the most bad rap. Forestry, mining and hydroelectric dams have had significant impacts on the habitat and ecosystems as well.
The WAC Bennet Dam built in the late 60's-early 70's has had the greatest impact on the caribou herds. The large reservoir created Williston Lake, where the valleys flooded were not logged prior to the flooding. Those trees came loose from the bottom of the reservoir and popped up, lining the shores for hundreds of kms so that the caribou could not enter/exit the waters on their migration routes from wintering to summer calving grounds along the Rocky Mtns. Many that made it into the water and swam across could not get out of the water and drowned. Then as the years (decades) went by, the erosion of the wind and waves on the shorelines eroded the shorelines of the silt laden soils (from this area once being an inland sea) to the point that many kms of shoreline are now steep cliffs or banks that no animals can make it up/down to get into or out of the water. This effectively stopped the migration of the herds of caribou here that once numbered in the thousands. Generations later (for the caribou) they have lost their knowledge of the migration trails and the scent trails of the thousands of caribou migrating along trails that existed for thousands of years, to the point that they no longer know the routes, or can find them. The dam also created a new micro-climate that did not exist here before, by increasing the areas natural humidity levels, amounts of snowfall and ambient temperatures.
Large blocks of timber were cleared by logging. At first these were smaller blocks that had smaller impacts on the environment. Then came the pine beetle. The subsequent logging practices of huge blocks of clearcut has completely cleared whole valleys and reduced the amount of escape cover and prime bedding areas. Not to mention create significant erosion issues and sedimentation of streams and rivers, and the drying up of smaller drainages, streams and tributaries that were once protected by the shade of the forests.
Then you add the changing of the landscape by large mine sites that disrupt or destroy what is left of shortened migration routes for the herds that are trapped south of the Williston Lake reservoir and their prime winter and calving areas and it leaves little area left for them to survive and raise their young in. Add the long sight corridors created by seismic lines, pipelines, and hydro transmission lines and you set up the perfect storm for predators to sight their prey and then easily run them down. These right of ways are planted with agronomic seed mixes, which replace native plant species with high protein plants such as timothy, clover and alfafa which attract the ungulates to them to feed on the higher nutrient foods, thus concentrating them in areas for the predators to hunt them more effectively.
Replanting these lines with native grass species instead of agronomic mixes that do not attract the ungulates will help rebalance the predator/prey equations, along with putting in lines of shrubs and bushes or making doglegs in the lines when built, that will disrupt the long line of sight runs on these lines, will limit how far the predators can see their prey from. Limiting the size of logging blocks and implementing better management of wildlife patches and riparian zones, and erosion control measures will help protect the environment and water quality, to better restore the balanced ecosystems quicker than current practices are doing. Using more underground mining practices will disturb less of the environment and valuable migration routes and wintering/calving grounds.
These are challenging issues when trying to balance with resource extraction and creating economic development and much needed jobs. But we need to do it in a more sustainable and responsible manner.
