Efforts to save endangered caribou herds through ecosystem protection in BC are failing so far, leaving the government to enact a cull of their biggest predator in two regions.
In the South Peace herd, located north of Prince George, 37% of all caribou mortalities have been blamed on wolves.
To remedy the situation the Ministry of Forests and Land will work with Treaty 8 First Nations to shoot up to 160 wolves from helicopter before snow melt.
“We’ve liberalized the season for both hunting and trapping within these areas.” Ministry spokesperson Tom Either said “Despite that, it’s just not efficient or sufficient enough to remove the number of wolves we need to get a response in caribou”
Either says the cull will not impact wolf population much and caribou desperately need the help.
“This effort is to try to prevent the almost near term local extinction of caribou, while at the same time sustaining wolf populations provincially because the overall removal of wolves would be around 2% of the provincial population, which is estimated at 8500.”
Fewer than 1000 caribou across seven herds remain in the South Peace, a number the government would like to get to 1200 within 21 years with this program.
Things are much worse for the South Selkirk herd, which only contains 18. Ministry staff will remove up to 24 wolves from that ecosystem.
The Ministry says the wolf cull plan for both regions has been independently peer reviewed by numerous biologists.
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