Southern Mountain Woodland Caribou in Jasper National Park [2019]

Editor’s Note: Mountain caribou, the iconic resident of the area now known as Jasper National Park, are unfortunately on the decline. In this article from Layla Neufeld, she provides us with a bit of history around the Jasper-area caribou and the events leading up to their population decrease. The article closes out on a nice note however, touching on a new program from Parks Canada which attempts to augment caribou population.

Along with the written word, Neufeld has also included some amazing imagery.

This article first appeared in the 2019 State of the Mountains Report. We'll continue to publish articles exploring the science on our current state of Canada's alpine on our blog throughout the year. Find them all here.

The history of mountain caribou in Jasper National Park

Two bulls sparring in the alpine. Photo: Layla Neufeld.

In 1878, English peers Algernon and Alice Heber-Percy wrote a short book on an 1877-78 trophy hunting trip, Journal of Two Excursions in the British North West Territory. Their travels had brought them to the Rockies, and to Henry House specifically (near present-day Jasper, Alberta), where they recorded details of excursions involving long ascents, glaciers, precipitous cliffs, fresh caribou tracks, and their ultimate success in hunting a group of caribou in the Maligne Range. One bull specimen was described as having a “splendid head of twenty-five points, with the broad palmated tyne in front of the forehead well developed.”¹ Of course, the mountains of Jasper were different then, with a long history of Indigenous use but significantly less impact from non-Indigenous settler populations relative to the present day. Endangered species was a designation of the future for mountain caribou.

Although interesting, sparse anecdotes like the Heber-Percys’ aren’t useful indicators of the historical status of caribou herds. Measures of wildlife numbers or trends from eighty years ago or more were usually guesses; but of value from the many of the early accounts is the confirmation that caribou were historically more widely distributed.

Similarly, the role of national parks was different. In 1907, when Jasper Forest Park was established under the Dominion Lands Act, tracts were set aside and protected from development, but tourism promotion and wildlife viewing soon became a keen focus. And while visitor experience and enjoyment remain a key role of national parks, the current mandate also includes significant focus on maintaining “ecological integrity.” Ecological Integrity is defined by parks as a state where the ecology of an area is intact and the ecosystem functions on its own, maintaining the suite of species that have lived there for millennia, and the processes (like migration or dispersal) that support those species’ life histories.

Caribou in wildland flowers. Photo: Layla Neufeld.

Disappearing caribou in the Park

A declining species at risk in today’s Jasper National Park means we’re in danger of losing ecological integrity. And it leaves us with questions: how did we get here, why is it continuing, and what should we do?

“A declining species at risk in today’s Jasper National Park means we’re in danger of losing ecological integrity.”

To answer these questions, we need good data. We are now able to accurately document herd sizes and trends, branching into novel techniques like matching individual genotypes across two annual samples and then estimating a population size. There’s nuance in many of the approaches, but they tell the same story: caribou are close to being extirpated from southern Jasper National Park.

As is true of many species at risk, caribou are sensitive to environmental change and reproduce slowly. Reproductive not until age 3, probably not every year, and producing only one calf at a time, caribou populations don’t weather large changes in predation pressure very well. In southern Canada, predators, mainly wolves, don’t rely on caribou for survival, but impacts of increased predation on caribou herds can be swift and substantial. Wolves are doing what nature programmed them to do: hold territory, hunt, find mates, and reproduce. If they’re good at the first three items, the fourth comes naturally. When wolves have more prey, as it has in caribou ranges across much of Canada because of shifts in forest age due to industrial land-use and a glut of high quality food for ungulates in these young regenerating forests, wolves can raise more pups. Because there are more of them, wolves increase their hunting reach and caribou become bycatch. More wolves equal more wolf-caribou encounters – and caribou lose.

Why are they in decline?

Without extensive landscape change in Jasper National Park, why have caribou declined in this region? A large contribution has been the park’s management history, which manufactured a poor ecological system for caribou. In the early years of the forest park, when wildlife viewing was a priority, the park implemented a harsh attitude towards predators. Extensive predator control programs were put in place, and they continued to varying degrees until 1959. Staff were hired specifically for predator removals, and baits and poisons were used throughout the farthest reaches of the backcountry. Predator numbers were considered “in hand” throughout this time. At the same time, in 1920, elk were reintroduced after having been extirpated in the late 1800s. They flourished in a predator-free landscape, from less than a hundred head to thousands by the mid-1930s. Elk removal programs were necessitated, as elk started noticeably affecting their own environment through overgrazing. By 1959, when predator control stopped, elk populations were hovering around 2,000, and elk were observed throughout high alpine meadows, in places that we’d be surprised to see them today. Wolves came back to a world full of naive and healthy elk; excellent conditions to reproduce.

Observing their predators

“Wolf numbers are notoriously hard to measure. When people were regularly in the backcountry, repeated observations enabled us to coarsely estimate wolf numbers and density.”

Wolf numbers are notoriously hard to measure. When people were regularly in the backcountry, repeated observations enabled us to coarsely estimate wolf numbers and density. Today, we still use observation to estimate wolf numbers, but we also use technology. A grid of remote cameras across Jasper National Park allows detection of individuals, pack colours and compositions, and enables us to delineate pack territories throughout the park. This simple technique, combined with careful eyes and attention to detail, has become a reliable method of estimating changing wolf numbers. It has taken a long time for wolves to decrease, but they have steadily declined since 1970, and would have done so faster if not for supplemental feeding on roadkill up to 2006. From 2005 to present, wolves have declined from 5.9 to 1.5 wolves/1000km2.

Research tells us that caribou herds do best when wolf density is less than 3/1000km2 and when wolves are not given ease of access to caribou habitat via packed trails. Only since 2013 have we reached this density threshold in Jasper National Park. Unfortunately, caribou herds had become very small by this point, and because of biological constraints are now unable to recover without help. Parks Canada continues to examine the feasibility of augmenting populations of this iconic mountain species within Jasper National Park; an exciting project that aims to give this species the bump it needs to allow national parks to continue to protect and present intact mountain ecosystems, including their natural suite of species.

Layla Neufeld is the Caribou Biologist for Jasper National Park of Canada. The caribou program also includes Karly Savoy (Communications and Outreach Education Officer) and Jean-Francois Bisaillon (Project Manager, Mountain National Parks Caribou Conservation Program).

References

Heber Percy, A. and Heber Percy, A. Journal of Two Excursions in the British North West Territory of North America. 28. (Bennion and Horne, 1879).