Come on fellow trappers let's step up and be heard. Send Minister Campbell an email and let him know land sales in Mountain caribou habitat are not acceptable.
robin.campbell@assembly.ab.ca
I've been involved in a battle to save some habitat for the Redrock caribou herd here in Alberta. The herd is located on my traplines for a large portion of the year. They are the last migrating herd in Alberta. Our government in their wisdom has offered their habitat up for auction for oil & gas development. I'm not against development, in fact love it and make a living from it, but want it done right. And sometimes development has to be set aside until technology catches up and allows responsible extraction.
Outdoorsmen are taking up the battle here in Alberta, if you see the wisdom in well thought out development why not give our Wildlife Minister Robin Campbell, a quick email and let them know what you think. Something along the lines of being supportive of a hold on land sales in mountain caribou habitat until recovery plans are in place would go a long way to helping.
robin.campbell@assembly.ab.ca
This is no greenpiece action, trappers, hunters, and anglers are driving this movement, after all we started the conservation movement not tree-huggers. Here's an editorial from this mornings paper:
A year ago, the Alberta government put a temporary pause on the sale of oil, gas and mineral leases in two pockets of west-central Alberta that are home to a pair of imperilled caribou herds.
This wise — albeit delayed — call had been recommended for some zones nearly a decade ago by an advisory team to Alberta Sustainable Resources that urged range plans (recovery and protection zones) be established for each threatened Alberta caribou herd.
But the province has failed to take the same action to protect other herds and this week started to auction off nearly 1,770 hectares for lease north of Grande Cache, which is home to a group of herds threatened with extinction.
This iconic Canadian animal is a powerful enough symbol that it is depicted on our currency. What many people may not realize from their pocket change is how many varieties of caribou exist within Canada. In Alberta, there are two distinct groups: the mountain caribou and boreal woodland caribou.
By the standards of the federal government, both are threatened. And this month, scientists who make up the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, determined Alberta’s mountain caribou are in such dire circumstances they ought to be classified as endangered. According to the report, the number of caribou that make up the already small central mountain herds of Alberta and B.C. has declined by 60 per cent in the past 10 years.
Among the features that make mountain caribou different from their boreal counterparts is their need to migrate, moving from Rocky Mountain alpine areas in summer to mature forests in the foothills for the winter.
The health of these herds is one way to measure the health of our forests.
It is always tough for Alberta to put restrictions on industry and draw lines that could, even temporarily, close pockets of the province to resource extraction. No government official wants to embrace a policy change that the industry says could affect economic prosperity, jobs or the province’s bottom line, given how heavily Alberta relies on resource royalties as a revenue source.
Our amazing national parks perhaps give a false impression that there are enough protected places for at-risk species. But given Alberta’s diverse ecosystems, parks alone won’t cut it.
There is abundant scientific evidence of the serious impact human activities such as logging, well sites and roads have on caribou. The federal government’s 2012 caribou strategy requires jurisdictions to create zones that would eventually be at least 65 per cent undisturbed to allow for recovery.
Knowing those expectations, what harm could come from a pause on lease sales? An oil or gas outfit would have to delay a project in that particular area. The resource won’t disappear in the meantime.
After nearly a decade of study, talk and clear recommendations — but little concrete action — it almost feels as if the province, through an unstated policy of neglect, hopes the problem — and the caribou — will simply disappear.
Albertans should not accept that its endangered and threatened caribou are goners.
To sit back for another decade and give only lip service to protection would be a tragedy. The first step must be to put an immediate halt to mineral lease sales and logging — at a bare minimum within all ranges of Alberta’s mountain caribou — until science-based range plans are adopted.
Editorials are the consensus opinion of the Journal’s editorial board, comprising Margo Goodhand, Kathy Kerr, Karen Booth, Sarah O’Donnell and David Evans.
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www.sheepcreek.net www.compassmedia.ca
Let's save some caribou
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