A careful type of partnership will guide a last-ditch effort to restore the forest caribou herds that will disappear from Jasper National Park.
With the remaining herds in the park considered too small to survive, Parks Canada plans to capture females, along with a small list of bulls, and raise them in captivity.
The hope is that each season of donkeys, nature will follow its course within the breeding corrals of the facilities, albeit with some human intervention.
Raising animals would be critical to ensuring the health of the expanding herd, said David Argument, a resource conservation officer at Jasper National Park.
With so few caribou left, the way animals come from nature and mate in captivity should be carefully managed.
“We will keep what is known as a genealogical book. Who is paired with whom? Who were the parents of each offspring?” That argument. “That way we can track this genetic diversity and make sure we’re not in a situation of inbreeding.”
The $ 25 million project would permanently store up to 40 women and five men in a one-square-kilometer facility surrounded by an electric fence.
Public consultations on the facility are ongoing until September. A final decision is expected this fall.
If Parks Canada approves the plan, construction of the facility near Athabasca Falls, about 30 miles south of Jasper, would begin this winter. The first calves would be born in the spring of 2025 and the following year would be released to the Tonquin herd.
One-year-old males would also be released, but the success of the program would depend on females, who can give birth to a calf each year, Argument said.
Some females born in captivity were housed in the facility to expand the breeding population.
“The number of men is not that important,” he said. “A male caribou can have a harem of cows.”
The captive breeding program is expected to produce about 20 calves a year, enough to bring herds to sustainable levels in a decade.
The first priority would be to save the Tonquin herd, building it from the brink of extinction to a self-sustaining population of 200.
Argument said Argument.
Only a select few could be extracted from the original herds. Even the healthiest populations in the region are dangerously small and depopulating them could endanger herds.
We need to make sure that we are incorporating caribou into this program that matches Jasper’s environment.- David Argument
There are also challenges when it comes to obtaining the necessary breeding stock. The captured caribou should have behavioral and genetic traits similar to animals in local herds.
This would ensure that captive-bred youngsters would easily bond with their wild counterparts and have the right instincts to survive, Argument said.
“We have to make sure we’re incorporating caribou into this program that matches Jasper’s environment so we don’t end up with caribou just trying to do harm,” he said.
The southern mountain caribou found in the park have different migration patterns, moving between ancient forests and high alpine areas.
“The last thing we want is caribou that can go down to the bottom of the valley in the winter, for example, which is what some caribou populations do,” Argument said.
“If a survival strategy works elsewhere, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work here.”
Calves born in the program would be released back into the wild as a one-year-old baby. (Wildlife Infometry)
Two of the five caribou herds documented in Banff and Jasper National Parks have already become extinct.
The last five members of the Banff herd died in an avalanche in April 2009. With no sightings since 2018, the Maligne herd is now considered extinct.
The Tonquin herd is estimated to be about 45, and the Brazeau herd is estimated at less than 15 caribou. It is estimated that there are nine breeding females left in Tonquin and three in Brazeau, none are expected to grow.
If the conservation breeding facility is approved, all remaining members of the Brazeau herd would be in captivity.
The À la Pêche herd on the northern edge of Jasper National Park, with 160 caribou, would like to serve as the home herd for the breeding program.
Argument said Parks Canada is also in talks to pull caribou from BC’s wild herds.
“Tragic but necessary”
The proposal is an extreme intervention, said Carolyn Campbell, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association. But he said desperate measures are needed.
Parks Canada has taken steps to help caribou populations, such as restricting public access to winter grazing areas. Those changes came too late, Campbell said.
Breeding alone is not enough, he said. Parks Canada must ensure that one-year-olds released from captivity and those born in the wild are adequately protected.
Protecting the remaining habitat within the park is critical, he said.
“This is a tragic interim measure but necessary to keep the caribou where they belong,” Campbell said.
The argument said Jasper National Park must take swift and decisive action to protect the species.
It may be the last chance to keep the species iconic in the Rockies landscape, he said.
“I think it’s incredibly critical. Caribou are an intrinsic part of Jasper’s very identity,” he said.
“And the numbers are so low right now that we don’t have much time left.”