Recovery actions have steered southern mountain caribou away from extinction, but we still have a long way to go. Researchers pooled data from over fifty years to follow the fate of 40 caribou herds—the southern mountain caribou population—to assess their trajectory and response to recovery actions. They found dramatic declines but recent recovery due to controversial measures. When predation pressure was reduced, rapid population growth was observed, even under contemporary climate change and high levels of habitat loss. Habitat protection and restoration are essential for long-term caribou recovery, but restoration will take decades to produce the mature forests and low predator densities caribou need. If we wish to maintain caribou populations on the landscape in the meantime, evidence-based, short-term recovery actions such as those studied in this paper would need to be considered.
Presenter: Clayton Lamb is a wildlife scientist at Biodiversity Pathways that has worked on a variety of projects across western North America including the recovery of Klinse-Za caribou, grizzly bear population dynamics in southeast BC, and reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions on highways.
Read the research online: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eap.2965
