Wolves Scapegoated While Alberta Government Sells Off Endangered Caribou Habitat

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Culling Albertaโ€™s wolves without prioritizing caribou habitat protection and restoration is like โ€œshoveling sand,โ€ according to Mark Hebblewhite, associate professor of ungulate habitat biology at the University ofย Montana.

Hebblewhite says the Alberta government is sponsoring a wolf cull without doing the one thing that could possibly scientifically justify it: conserving and restoring critical caribou habitat.

โ€œThatโ€™s the tragedy here: the Alberta government blew the opportunity to do the right thing,โ€ heย said.

โ€œItโ€™s all shoveling sand without real commitment to habitatย conservation.โ€

Scientists have warned of Albertaโ€™s caribou losses for decades and in recent years have argued the majority of the herds are endangered with some facing an imminent risk of local extinction. Provinces have until 2017 to formulate provincial caribou recovery plans under the new federal caribou recovery strategy released inย 2012.

The goal for each province is to maintain 65 per cent undisturbed habitat in all caribou ranges, according to Duncan MacDonnell, public affairs officer for Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD).

โ€œIt is ESRDโ€™s responsibility to implement recovery plans,โ€ for Alberta, MacDonnell said, adding that since 2004 the province has had a wolf cull in place โ€œto hold the line while the habitat recovery plans take place and areย implemented.โ€

Since 2006 more than 1,000 wolves have been shot in the Little Smokey and A La Peche caribouย ranges.

The provinceโ€™s use of predator management has generated serious controversy, especially in light of continuing sales of oil and gas leases in caribou ranges, a move experts say undermines the scientific integrity of the wolfย cull.

โ€œThere are all kinds of ethical problems in this mess,โ€ Hebblewhite told DeSmogย Canada.

โ€œItโ€™s unethical to sell oil and gas leases in endangered caribou criticalย habitat.โ€

Hebblewhite recently published a paper, Managing Wolves to Recover Threatened Woodland Caribou in Alberta, that demonstrated the wolf cull in the Little Smoky and A La Peche regions helped stabilize local caribou herds, but wonโ€™t contribute to their long-term survival without habitat recovery andย protection.

โ€œIf we had started killing wolves 10 years ago, stopped all development, and started restoration, we might actually be somewhere,โ€ heย said.

Hebblewhite is preparing to release additional research that shows that since the release of the federal recovery strategy, the federal and provincial governments have allowed significant oil and gas activity to continue in caribouย ranges.

โ€œThis is where it is most egregious: on the one hand, the Alberta government is saying they are doing habitat conservation while on the other I have proprietary oil and gas industry data that shows there have been hundreds of wells drilled in the Little Smoky herd, and 1,500 wells drilled in the Cold Lake herd range on the border with Saskatchewan. And that herd is the second most rapidly declining herd in theย country.โ€

โ€œAnd this is just since 2012 when the federal caribou recovery plan, including the delineation of critical habitat, was adopted,โ€ heย said.

โ€œWe are still destroying caribou habitatโ€ฆit shows quite clearly that weโ€™re killing wolves and we are not doing anything to recover caribou or the borealย forest.โ€

Habitat Destruction, Seismic Lines a Costly Lack ofย Foresight

Oilsands companies are in a โ€œmad rushโ€ to restore seismic lines in Albertaโ€™s caribou ranges before the province reveals its caribou recovery plan โ€” mandated under the Federal Caribou Recovery Strategy โ€” byย 2017.

With tens of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines, their restoration is critical for reducing the mobility of wolves in caribouย ranges.

Scott Nielsen, a University of Alberta professor who is studying seismic line restoration, said now that restoration on these legacy lines is happening, industry should work with scientists to ensure itโ€™s done right. At a cost of roughly $10,000 per kilometre Nielsen says prioritizing the most critical areas for caribou and other species isย critical.

โ€œA lot of companies are grouping together and doing restoration projects, but if each company is doing a little bit here and a little bit there, the scale at which the disturbances occur at and the scale at which caribou and wolves move at are big. We need to think big when weโ€™re thinking of the restoration or theย offsets.โ€

โ€œIt would be even better if the work could be coordinated from the stand point of objectively trying to identify areas with the best bang for our buck both from the perspective of biodiversity and cost benefits,โ€ heย said.

And now, Nielsen said, even with aggressive restoration in place, โ€œfrom a caribou perspective there has to be some form of zoning or restriction in development for at least certain herds for them toย persist.โ€

But the government of Alberta, in lieu of enforcing habitat protection โ€” which would require limiting new leasing for oil and gas companies โ€” has relied on predator control as a means to keep caribou herdsย alive.

Predator control, Nielsen said, โ€œtends to be a favourite tool used when youโ€™re desperate and you have a population or a species that is critically endangered andย threatened.โ€

The wolf cull is โ€œone tool the managers are using for a short-term solution,โ€ Nielsen said. โ€œAnd if they arenโ€™t working towards a long-term solution then it should beย abandoned.โ€

Real Issue is Habitatย Conservation

For Raincoast Conservation Foundation biologist and wolf expert Paul Paquet, the continued destruction of caribou habitat demonstrates the Alberta government is working atย cross-purposes.

โ€œThe whole issue around oil and gas leases is it shows the government working at cross-purposes,โ€ Paquet said. โ€œI think it undermines theirย credibility.โ€

He added the negative effects of unrestored seismic lines on caribou habitat has been known for decades, but both government and industry have failed to take meaningfulย action.

โ€œThey donโ€™t seem intent on doing what needs to be done,โ€ Paquet said, adding the failure to protect caribou habitat throws the provinceโ€™s ongoing wolf cull into a โ€œmoralย dilemma.โ€

Research recently published by Hebblewhite and his colleagues shows that while the killing of wolves in some areas has stabilized populations, aggressive predator control was unable to put caribou back on a path to self-sustainingย populations.

โ€œAll of this is useless if the primary reasons for caribou decline isnโ€™t addressed and that primary one now is loss of habitat and degraded habitat,โ€ Paquetย said.

Hebblewhiteย agrees.

Predator control โ€œhas to be against the template of real commitment to habitat conservation. But if weโ€™re just doing it in small little parts of the habitat and destroying other parts, itโ€™s probably not going to have a very goodย effect.โ€

The wolf cull โ€œreminds us weโ€™ve screwed up the entire ecosystem,โ€ Hebblewhite said. โ€œKilling wolves is a short-term response to that. It buys usย time.โ€

Image Credit: John E.ย Marriott

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