Caribou

“ The only caribou left in the contiguous United States are here in northern Idaho where they number about a dozen and live deep in the forests of the jagged Selkirk Mountains, near the Canadian border. Because they are so rarely seen, the caribou . . . are known as gray ghosts . . . The fundamental cause of the caribou decline is the unanticipated ecological consequences of development . . . As it stands, the Selkirk herd will not survive...”

“Depleted by hunting over more than six decades, the Svalbard reindeer has been recovering strongly under Norway's conservation measures, and there may now be as many as 10,000 of them on the islands . . . the reindeer are in a boom cycle, possibly because of warming temperatures....Nonetheless, scientists worry that warmer winters may cause heavier snowfalls, and refreezing could create an ice barrier over the plants, causing starvation and a population crash.”

“It was once our largest caribou herd, and one of the biggest herds of large migratory mammals anywhere in the world.  The George River caribou of northern Quebec and Labrador were surpassed in numbers perhaps only by Africa's wildebeest . . . But now their population is perilously small — about 4 percent of its peak....encroachment of industrial development into their habitat puts these animals at increasing risk.” Recent surveys estimate the herd size at fewer than 28,000, down from 775,000 in 1993.

“61,000 reindeer starved to death on Russia's Yamal Peninsula . . . An additional 20,000 had succumbed to famine . . . The immediate cause, according to the team of researchers . . . was an unusual ice barrier that smothered the reindeer pastures . . . As the scientists summarized the sequence, ‘Warming → Sea ice decline → Increased precipitation and winter temperatures → [Rain-on-snow] events → Reindeer mortality.'”

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada lists the Peary caribou as endangered, finding a population decline of “84% in the last 4 decades” due to climate change and “unsustainable hunting.”

Over the last century, development in Norway has resulted in an estimated 70% loss of undisturbed reindeer habitat. “Europe's last remaining population of wild [mountain] reindeer is in peril . . . dams, mountain cabins and hydroelectric schemes . . . serve as frontiers that reindeer herds are reluctant to cross. So many exist that the 30,000 remaining animals – down from 60,000 in the 1960s – are fragmented into 24 isolated groups.”

“Thousands of reindeer in the Russian Northeast may starve to death due to unusual weather events . . . two herds of reindeer in Alaska are being forced south from their regular wintering area . . . Half of the Central Arctic herd is now missing . . . Scientists say extreme weather events like this are occurring more frequently due to climate change . . . Unless urgent actions are taken to control fossil fuel burning, we may witness the end of an ecosystem in the next few generations.”

“North of the border, the woodland caribou are provincially ‘red-listed' . . . by British Columbia and listed as threatened under Canada's Species at Risk Act.”

104 million acres of land is placed under federal protection, including the calving ground of the nation's largest caribou herd.  “The legislation constituted the greatest act of wilderness preservation in American history.”

“The estimated population of the western Arctic caribou herd has sunk from 250,000 to about 50,000 in the last six years, worrying people in Alaska's inland villages, who still depend heavily on the animal for winter food.”

“Conservationists had feared the worst for caribou herds . . . The environmentalists went to federal court claiming the oil companies had provided neither an adequate environmental impact study nor any alternative plans as required by federal law. The judge ruled in favor of the environmentalists. For nearly four years, they were able to delay construction, until the oil companies came up with a comprehensive impact study and a design that took into account the environment and the need to protect wildlife.”

In the late 1800s, there may have been 5 million caribou in Russia, which rapidly declined to about 250,000 as a result of overhunting, habitat loss and fracturing through timber cutting and road-building. “The distribution of reindeer in Russia has become fragmented as a result of human impact. Decreases in numbers, and separation in populations and their habitats have resulted in heavy hunting pressures often associated with industrial development.”

“Novaya Zemlya became the site of some of the world's largest test explosions . . . Consisting of two islands approximately 450 km from the Arctic Circle, Novaya Zemlya was inhabited by nomadic peoples and reindeer before nuclear testing started. Roughly 500 people were relocated due to the testing programme. Most of the reindeer either died or were transported to the mainland . . ."

“As late as the seventeenth century, herds containing thousands of wild forest reindeer appeared throughout Finland . . . Wild forest reindeer were hunted to extinction . . . in the late 1910s, but continued to live in the remote backwoods of Russian Karelia.” In the 1950s, Russian wild forest reindeer would cross the border to the Finnish side and repopulate Finland.