Fate of the Caribou in North Western BC May. 3rd, 2013 at 9:53 AM. Jorma Jyrkkanen

Fate of the Caribou in North Western BC May. 3rd, 2013 at 9:53 AM Fate of the Caribou in North Western BC Nass Ranges

Background While working at the Fish and Wildlife Branch in North Western British Columbia as a habitat protection technician, I garnered snippets of information about the Caribou, which had vanished from the Terrace area during the period 1900 to 1981. Caribou had been used by the Native Band in Kitwanga as food and raw leather and sinew for snowshoes according to an Elder of the Band relating to my friend, Dr. Allen Gottesfeld. They were thus an important part of the hunting tradition of at least this Northwestern Native tribe and I have reason to believe that they were also for the Tsimshians near Terrace. This same elder said that they used to burn human bones in the fire at night to keep the Grizzlies away. He added, ‘White Man’s bones worked best’. Watch your bones in the Kitwanga area, my friends! The Native Slaughter A old White trapper who lived in Aiyansh, informed me in about 1983 that there were Caribou living in the Kalum river basin and surrounding mountains until the early part of the 1900’s. He said that local natives rounded them all up and killed the entire herd because they believed that this would prevent the White Man from settling this area and they also didn't want White Man to have their Caribou. Evidence for their Existence As an avid hiker, I ranged widely in these mountains during my eighteen years at Terrace from 1981 to 1999, and found old evidence for their existence adjacent to the Kalum valley in the Nass ranges. I found a single naturally shed whitened Caribou antler in the forest on Mt. Maroon and left it on the trail. Another friend picked it up on a later hike and brought it home and gave it to me when I told him the story. This confirms that caribou lived there. I still have that antler. Were they in fact extirpated completely? Mt. Maroon is on the east side of Kalum Lake, and it is a huge massif with abundant alpine, over 100 goats and harbors grizzly bears to which I can personally attest. Moose are now very abundant on the lower slopes with bulls and a few cows ranging as high as the alpine. Estimates put the number in the Kitsumkalum river valley over 120 moose. At the time of the extirpation of the Caribou, moose would just arrived in this part of BC. They have undergone a recent range expansion in BC and the first confirmed observation of a moose on the West Coast near Prince Rupert was reported to me by a fisherman while I worked at the branch during the early 1980’s. Regional wildlife biologist, Ben VanDrimmelen flew a helicopter goat count on the Nass ranges and saw no Caribou. Caribou Tracks in the Nass Valley While inspecting a private woodlot operation on the Grease trail in the Nass in about 1985, less than 20 kms east of Aiyansh, I found a lone Caribou track travelling along the grease trail in the eastern direction. On another occasion, I found a single Caribou track on a logging road on a south aspect of the big ridge adjacent and east of the paved highway just north of the Cranberry river Meziadin highway junction. These two observations confirm that caribou still lived in north Nass ranges and also in the Brown Bear lake area north and west of the Cranberry junction. Evidence of Past Caribou in the Hazeltons I found a similarly whitened aged Caribou antler on Mt. Roshe deBeule just south of Old Hazelton while hiking with Vicki Krykalyvi. It lay partially covered in moss and heather in the sub-alpine near the tramway to the Valley on the north aspect of the Massif, suggesting that they livid in that area at one time. I had heard of no new reports of caribou in either area in recent times. However, having said that, I found tracks made by a small herd of deer sized ungulates one cold snowy winters day crossing the Terrace-Smithers highway on the northwest aspect of Seven Sisters mountain near Kitwanga. The snow was quite deep at the time. I did not have time to stop and check them but I believed that they were made by Caribou because I knew deer were too few in the area to travel in a herd and they were to small to be moose. This was tantalizing but inconclusive evidence that there may still be vestiges of Caribou in the area. Caribou South of Kitimat A native chap came into the office very excited one day in the early 1980’s. He was a fisherman who traveled the waters of Kitimat Arm frequently and he reported that he had seen a herd of Caribou numbering about 22 or 26, I cannot recall exactly, standing on the beach at the long abandoned Old Native Village bay just north of Hartley Bay. I knew this area. This was the same site where I had done fisheries inventory work with DFO’s Uriah Ohr and also found a stone adze head. I asked him if they could have been deer and if he had made a mistake, and he swore that he knew the difference and said they were unmistakenly Caribou. "They had short necks!" I had a chance to fly the area several months later and looked for tracks in the snow but found none. Obviously the herd was moving through. There are known to be Caribou in Tweedsmuir Park to the East of Hartley Bay so perhaps it was a migratory remnant of that herd that had swam across the Sound heading west for the winter. Ecological Changes Associated with the Extirpation The decline of the Nass Ranges Caribou corresponded closely with the arrival of moose in this area which in turn responded to logging and access and early seral vegetation changes, about the 1930’s and so I inferred that that same arrival brought many more wolves to the area. I would have also increased Black bear predation since they respond positively to logging and the increase in berry production. The Caribou would have had great difficulty recovering from the early slaughter and this swelling of the populations of predators. They would also have been negatively affected by the decline in old timber with its lichens and also by the slash fires which killed ground lichens. The CNR line also caused a lot of spot fires over the years which may have taken out considerable ground lichens. Hypothesis for their Difficulties It was my belief and hypothesis at that time which I shared with my other colleagues in Habitat Protection, that the increase in predators associated with early seral and the arrival of moose coupled to major habitat changes associated with logging made it hard for any remnant Caribou to recover. Difficult Recovery However, having said that, I believe that a recovery program could be implemented with checks and balances brought in to partially restore Caribou in the area, though there would be fierce opposition from the Forest sector, since this is a major part of the local economy and Old Growth is definitely better for this species of ungulate. Summation That my friends is the story of how we joined forces and wiped out most of the Caribou in the Terrace District and Nass ranges. It is a story being repeated all over the world. It is the story of the range expansion of the most deadly predator of all time. Mankind. I could tell the same story about the Woodland Caribou of NW Ontario where progressive 50,000 acre cutblocks wiped out their habitat prior to my arrival there in 1976-77. © 2002 Jorma Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved. Tags: bc, conservation, habitat, jorma jyrkkanen, wildlife