Here’s a short timeline, from over the course of 2019 alone, demonstrating how corporate resource extraction and the ignoring of Indigenous voices and ecological systems is resulting in the extinction of the southern mountain caribou.
These headlines chart events in British Columbia and the US’s Pacific Northwest, beginning with the extinction of caribou in the contiguous United States in January; followed by the British Columbia provincial government’s approval of new clearcuts, corporate logging contracts, wolf-shooting proposals, and pipeline construction in critical caribou habitat; then, in October, the US federal government finally listed the caribou as formally endangered as local First Nations in BC prepare to propose their own caribou-management plans. (Most of these headlines come from Sarah Cox’s reporting for The Narwhal, one of the only outlets to have publicized this saga. The southern mountain caribou is not a full, unique species, but it is a distinct ecotype of caribou; it is highly endangered. I tried to keep this timeline concise, but maybe check-out these articles for more content on caribou, BC politics, pipelines, and temperate rainforest ecology.)
A cow and calf, southern mountain caribou, from old-growth inland temperate rainforest near Revelstroke. [Photo by David Moskowitz.]
Caption reads: A clear-cut in the Anzac River drainage, making way for the Coastal GasLink pipeline to supply LNG Canada with fracked gas from B.C.’s northeast. The pipeline will impact three endangered caribou herds, including the Hart Ranges populations. TransCanada, which is building the pipeline, says it will have a “useful life” of 30 years. Caption reads: Scientist Dominick DellaSala stands at the fringe of a clear-cut in B.C.’s interior. DellaSala, who has studied forests and logging in countries such as Brazil and Borneo, describes clear-cutting in B.C.’s northern forests as some of the worst he’s ever seen.
Distribution of southern mountain caribou [original map source]. And distribution of inland temperate rainforest [original map source]. Some labels/edits by me.
January 2019: Caribou are extinct in the contiguous United States, as the last 3 members of the South Selkirks herd of southern mountain caribou are taken from Idaho and relocated to near Revelstroke in BC.
14 March 2019: “BC approves 314 new cutblocks in endangered caribou habitat over last five months.”
16 April 2019: “Caribou protection plan spawns racist backlash in northeast BC.”
26 April 2019: “Canadian Energy Pipeline Association to lobby BC government on endangered caribou plans.”
7 August 2019: “‘Deliberate extinction’: extensive clear-cuts, gas pipeline approved in endangered caribou habitat.”
4 October 2019: “US lists BC caribou as endangered while province approves logging in critical habitat.”
Caption reads: ‘Flagging tape marks the route of TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipelin, which cuts a wide swath through critical habitat for the endangered Hart Ranges caribou herd in the Anzac River drainage.’
Finally, this was reported on 6 October 2019: “First Nation in BC to devise own caribou herd-management plan, blames province for not doing enough.” (The Globe and Mail.)
The Tsilhqot’in National Government announced plans to draft their own herd-management plan for southern mountain caribou, as an alternative to the British Columbia provincial government’s continued allegiance to logging, development, and fossil fuel pipelines. This announcement comes a couple of days after the United States federal government announced, on 2 October 2019, that it would finally extend Endangered Species Act protections to most herds of southern mountain caribou. (The southern mountain caribou still resided in a single herd within the borders of the contiguous US - northern Idaho and northeastern Washington - up until January 2019. Now that the species is extinct within the contiguous US for the first time in history, the US federal government has conveniently decided to acknowledge the animal.)
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