Letters to the Editor -
Dear editor,
Our island woodland caribou is unique to North America and I think we all know that they are in trouble here on the island.
This year, for the first time in a number of years, I have seen caribou along the side of the highway traveling from Flower's Cove to St. Anthony. I have also been talking to a number of people who are seeing caribou like they did in the early '90s. Let us not shout too loud in claiming that the caribou is returning like they did in previous years. We must be very careful here. Please allow me to establish some data that I have been able to acquire over the past years on the plight of our woodland caribou.
Our caribou population on the island peaked at 96,300 in 1996, and since that time the caribou population had declined to about 37,600 by 2007 on the island. Our wildlife department has set a population of 24,000 island wide to cancel all woodland caribou hunting in the province. Then, at this current rate of decline hunting cessation will happen in 2011, when the population of 24,000 is projected to be reached.
Legal harvesting is not the major reason for this decline but habitat lost and predation by coyotes and bears. Eighty per cent of caribou decline is calf mortality due to predation and the major predators of those caribou is the eastern coyote and the black bear. Furthermore, a very high percentage of adult female caribou have reached a period showing low pregnancy rates, and are now susceptible to a very high mortality rate because of age.
A review by COSEWIC of Newfoundland woodland caribou is scheduled to take place in 2012. If the trend continues that we are seeing, it seems very likely that COESWIC will designate the Newfoundland (island) caribou threatened, and with this threatened designation will come a schedule of federal constraints under the Endangered Species Act. The result will be hunting will be completely curtailed by the federal government, if the province does not act first. COSEWIC and the federal government involvement will not make any provision for the restoration of usage of the caribou resource.
When hunting ceases, it is most likely that the general public will lose interest in caribou, as it has already happened with the Grey River and Avalon herd - for hunting purposes. This resource then becomes only something for biologists to tinker with and attempt to develop a recovery strategy. Government biologists have had this in their hands for many years and have been offered solutions but will not entertain those solutions. I have specifically asked for predator intervention, and governments' response was to establish a new predator license and workshops of how to hunt them.
Government's most recent response is they must develop new predator population modeling tools - a precondition for the commencement of any predator removals. This modeling tool development is not scheduled to be completed until later in 2010.
If we assume cabinet will approve, a work plan must be developed on the how's, when's, and the extent of removals, as well as how to manage the byproducts of removals and how to facilitate record keeping.
I trust that you can see from the schedule of events I have postulated; you should see that any real progress on any predator removal by 2010 is dubious at best. If nothing is done by 2010, we will have reached the hunting cut-off date before we get any action on the ground to deal with calf mortality.
If you look at what I have written above, I have postulated that all caribou hunting will cease by 2011, when the population s projected to reach 24,000 animals and remember COSEWIC will review population dynamics of island caribou in 2012.
This leaves us a very limited window of opportunity to in which to get this done. Seven years ago, the Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation presented to government this very scenario, but government would not hear what we were saying.
Sincerely yours,
Ward Samson
.jpg)
.jpg)
