Endangered Southern Mountain Caribou closer to being protected

Jul 25, 2008

Great news today for my endangered cousins, the Mountain Caribou of southeastern BC.  My pals Federal Environment Minister John Baird and Nature Conservancy President John Lounds announced today that they'll protect over 550 square kilometres of habitat critical to the South Selkirk population of Mountain Caribou. That's a chunk of land almost as big as the city of Toronto. The Nature Conservancy is saying this is the "largest single private conservation land acquisition in Canadian history".  Wow!

You might be wondering, "what's the difference between a Boreal Woodland caribou like myself and the Mountain caribou?"  While I live in the Boreal forest, my Southern Mountain cousins live almost exclusively in the southern mountains of BC.  Because of industrial logging and other development, their numbers have declined dramatically. In fact, this population is the very last group of caribou in Canada left that ranges into the United States. Have you seen my map of historical and current caribou ranges?   Caribou used to hang out in many parts of New England and the US Rockies.

This is big step in protecting caribou and our habitat.  I hope the federal government will keep making announcements like this, and setting aside big tracts of Canada's Boreal Forest for wildlife. A great next step would be the release of a map showing habitat critical for us Boreal Woodland caribou.  The Species at Risk Act says the government has to do it, and I'm here to make sure they do.

Read more about the announcement at The Nature Conservancy.

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