Video - Challenges to Monitoring Recovery of Woodland Caribou in Alberta

Authors
Robert Serrouya
Resource Date:
2013

Alberta’s woodland caribou are declining because of high predation, which is the result of a complex pathway of humans, herbivores, and wolves. Human land use, combined with a warming climate, have increased deer and moose populations, leading to higher predator numbers and increased consumption of caribou. Additionally, features such as seismic lines can enable easier predator movement, particularly for wolves, leading to higher predation rates. ABMI is involved with caribou research and management in four areas: first, ABMI is leading the design of large-scale adaptive management experiments in Alberta’s oil sands region, aimed at limiting predator use of linear features to lower caribou predation. Second, ABMI is developing a resource selection function to map provincial caribou habitat to help prioritize where restoration efforts will be most effective. Third, ABMI is working with the Government of Alberta to develop new methods to estimate caribou numbers, a species that is notoriously hard to count because of their rarity and association with dense forest cover. Finally, ABMI is helping to assess the effects of Alberta's expanding network of above-ground pipelines on caribou movements across the boreal forest.