B.C. conservationists express concern over Ottawa’s slow response to protect endangered caribou populations from habitat loss
Victoria: Conservation groups in British Columbia are pretty frustrated. They say the federal government has been dragging its feet for a decade on mapping critical habitats for endangered caribou. If things don’t change soon, these animals could vanish.
Recently, Ecojustice sent a letter to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. They represent groups like the Wilderness Committee, Wildsight, and Stand.earth. The letter highlights that three populations of southern mountain caribou are declining fast due to logging and industrial activities cutting through their homes.
Right now, southern mountain caribou are listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. Back in 2020, the government said there were about 3,100 left, which is a drop of 53% in just six years.
Ottawa did release a recovery strategy and some habitat mapping back in 2014. But the conservationists argue that the mapping isn’t finalized yet, which is a must-do under the law to help stop the decline.
According to Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon, the last word from Environment Canada was that a proposed recovery strategy with critical habitat mapping would come out in 2026, but that could change.
Eddie Petryshen, a conservation specialist with Wildsight in B.C.’s East Kootenay region, says that past federal governments have just kept pushing this issue aside. He feels that trend is still going strong today.
“It’s just been this endless cycle of planning while caribou are disappearing and their homes are being destroyed,” he said.
Petryshen pointed out that eight out of 18 herds in the southern group have been locally extinct over the last 20 years. “We know what’s causing that extinction,” he added.
These caribou rely on old-growth forests to survive. An analysis by the Wilderness Committee found that over 190,000 hectares of their critical habitat were logged between 2007 and 2023.
They based this on Ottawa’s partial habitat identification from 2014, but also used provincial mapping from 2019, which showed that more than 310,000 hectares of critical habitat were logged during the same period.
The Ecojustice letter, dated January 22, states that Ottawa’s ongoing delays and inaction “amount to a tacit endorsement of the extermination of a species.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on January 22, 2025.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
