: Brent Patterson Caribou: Philip Wiebe Wolf: ’s Vanishing Caribou: Are Truly the Culprits?

by CHERYL LYN DYBAS he summer sun slides behind a fir-tipped ridge in the deep, dark boreal forest in Ontario, . It’s 10 Tp.m.—twilight in June in the far north. Biologists John Fryxell of Ontario’s University of Guelph and Jim Baker of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) are in a car heading five hours north of Thunder Bay on Ontario Route 11. They skirt cliffs that resemble the sheer rock faces of Yosemite, then bank left onto Route 584 toward the railroad hamlet of Nakina, end of the line. Nakina is a First Nations word meaning “land covered with moss”—a clue to the researchers’ quarry. And so continues the search for a mysterious creature of the north woods. The gray ghost, it’s called, this pale being that passes almost without a trace through the black spruce and jack pines of the boreal forest, as this northern spruce-fir forest is known. Scientists have dedicated their professional lives to it, yet many have never glimpsed it. Caribou is its name.

4 Spring 2016 www.wolf.org In search of caribou the 2015 book Wolves on the Hunt: The As part of the hunt for a forest wraith, Behavior of Wolves Wild Prey, Fryxell and others at the University of “Woodland caribou tend to ‘space away’ Guelph, Trent University, the Canadian from wolves. Even in winter, caribou Forest Service and Ontario MNRF set locations averaged 9.3 miles (15 kilo- out on a four-year study (2010–14) of meters) from wolves in Ontario.” When woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus wolves are closer, it’s often because roads caribou), a species listed as threatened cut through the forest have allowed them under Ontario’s Endangered Species Act to get there. and Canada’s Species at Risk Act. “The stage is set for a ‘perfect storm’ of An important step toward protec- factors to collide, changing the relation- Philip Wiebe tion came in December 2014. Fryxell ship among habitat, predator and prey,” and his colleagues published research says wolf biologist Brent Patterson of the results in the Ontario document State of Ontario MNRF and Trent University. the Woodland Caribou Resource Report. It “Caribou, moose and wolves are in a lists 14 caribou ranges across Ontario, complex dance in the northern forest.” from the Swan Range in the northwest Where will they be when the to the Kesagami Range in the southeast. music stops? ’s coast: last rites, Threats to woodland caribou are Where are all the caribou? or final refuge for caribou? primarily habitat loss, degradation and Woodland caribou are medium-sized Of the 14 woodland caribou ranges fragmentation due to forestry and min- members of the family. In Ontario, identified in Ontario’s 2014 report, only ing. The reasons for the caribou’s decline, two caribou roam the woods. one—the Coastal Range along Lake the scientists found, trace back to us. The forest-tundra woodland caribou is Superior—shows what scientists call A recent Canadian Parks and found on the tundra during spring and a discontinuous distribution: few to Wilderness Society report, 2015 Update: summer, and moves into the boreal for- no caribou. Boreal Woodland Caribou Conservation est for the remainder of the year. The It wasn’t always so, according to in Canada, states, “There is sufficient non-migratory, forest-dwelling woodland biologists Peter Gogan of the U.S. knowledge now about the high-risk caribou lives year-round in the boreal Geological Survey’s Northern Rocky situations facing caribou in at least six forest—including some Lake Superior Mountain Science Center, and Jean Fitts ranges in Ontario that there should be islands. Only the non-migratory wood- Cochrane, now retired from the U.S. no expansion of the industrial footprint land caribou is listed as an Ontario spe- Fish and Wildlife Service. Gogan and here until…peer-reviewed science dem- cies at risk. Cochrane first wrote of the caribou’s onstrates positive trends in population The Ontario MNRF estimates the decline along Lake Superior in 1994. …and improved range conditions.” province’s non-migratory woodland Woodland caribou gradually retreated In particular, “…the elevated levels caribou population at 5,000 . northward from Lake Superior, vanish- of human-caused disturbance in the As caribou are difficult to find, no one ing from the western shore between Missisa Range [location of the ‘Ring of knows exactly how many there were in 1905 and 1912. Farther east, as recently Fire’ mining development] start to tell a the past—or is sure how story of the cumulative impact that min- many there are today. eral exploration alone can have on one Since the late 1800s, range even before a single mine is built.” more than 40 percent of Human-caused climate change may Ontario caribou range be another factor. Black spruce, jack pine has been lost; scientists and other coniferous trees—hallmarks have found it’s retreating of the boreal forest—are beginning to northward by about 21 move north, with caribou following. miles per decade. If that Aspens and birches are filling in rate continues, woodland behind the conifers. Moose prefer such caribou may be extinct in deciduous or mixed-deciduous/conifer- Ontario by 2100. ous forests; they’re in turn trailing the birches north. As moose hoof it pole- ward, wolves are right behind. Wolves may also be hot on the heels of The lichen Cladina caribou, but, according to International stellaris is a favorite food Wolf Center founder Dave Mech of the of the woodland caribou. U.S. Geological Survey, co-author of Philip Wiebe

International Wolf Spring 2016 5 B o camper spotted two wolves on the island r e in mid-summer 2014, says Patterson. a Then a naturalist photographed the l F o tracks of three wolves on a Michipicoten r e s t beach in October 2014. Patterson and other scientists mounted an expedition to the island in February, ONTARIO 2015. They located and radio-collared a pack of three wolves—one male and two females. “We’re currently genetically pro- Michipicoten filing all three wolves to find out if there Island are any parent-offspring relationships,” says Patterson. “For now, we don’t know exactly where the wolves came from.” The researchers also found some 250 to 300 woodland caribou, perhaps In the boreal forest the most of any location along Lake Superior—despite the wolves’ presence. of , “Michipicoten has an abundant beaver population,” says Patterson, “which pro- the stage is set for a vides another food source for wolves.”

‘perfect storm’ of factors Going, going…gone? to collide, changing That estimate is very close to correct, according to the relationship among biologist Christine Drake. In the late 1970s, 40 caribou roamed within the habitat, predator and park boundary, says Drake. By 2009, that number was down to five, and in 2011, prey. Caribou, moose to three. They’re probably Pukaskwa’s last caribou. and wolves are in a There is better news elsewhere. On Pat Gaines the (along Lake Superior’s Why are caribou seemingly flourish- complex dance in the north-central shore), says Ontario MNRF ing, in relative terms, on Michipicoten biologist Steve Kingston, today there are and not in other places? northern forest. Where some 100 caribou. That number may Scientists are in the early months of once have been as high as 650. will they be when the figuring that out, but the presence of The islands offer good caribou habi- beavers may mean that wolf–caribou music stops? tat with plenty of vegetation, including dynamics will play out very differently lichen, a caribou favorite. Another boost there than in places without beavers. may be the lack of predators such as wolves. “Then an ice bridge formed in Into the boreal forest as the 1960s, woodland caribou range the winter of 1994,” Kingston says, “and To know caribou, one must first learn was continuous south to Lake Superior, again in 2014 and 2015, opening a wolf to know the boreal forest, scientists like extending to what is now Pukaskwa passage each time.” To date, however, Patterson have found. The best place for National Park. caribou apparently aren’t enticing wolves that may lie due north of Lake Superior. “With several small populations of to stay on the Slates. When wolves ven- Over the past 80 years, human woodland caribou persisting, it might ture out to the islands, it’s for relatively activities have changed the character appear that these populations are via- short visits. of Ontario’s boreal forest. Timber har- ble,” offered Gogan and Cochrane in On 71-square-mile (84-square-kilo- vesting has altered the mix of tree spe- their 1994 report. But “…the prognosis meter) Michipicoten Island, five times cies, and fire suppression has made the for most of the existing Lake Superior the size of the Slates, a new story may forest older in some places than would herds is actually bleak.” The researchers be developing. naturally be the case. predicted extinction for the Pukaskwa Wolves probably made their way to In response, researchers have been National Park herd within 25 years. Michipicoten across 2014’s ice bridge. A comparing variables, including forest

6 Spring 2016 www.wolf.org fire frequency, in three Ontario boreal forest regions: the Pickle Lake area, the environs around Cochrane, and Auden, near which Nakina lies. Balance may lie in human landscape use It’s 6 a.m. in mid-June, broad daylight in this northern locale. The researchers are about to arrive at the Auden site. A few hundred yards into the forest, a thick carpet of what looks like pine needles covers an area the size of a sub- urban yard. But it’s not pine needles. It’s hair from a small, probably young, moose long-gone: a wolf kill. Across their study area, the scientists would find wolves most often taking moose rather than caribou. Research in ’s oil sands region by Samuel Wasser of the University of and other scientists reveals Philip Wiebe that 10 percent of wolves’ diet there is caribou. The rest is deer and moose. To halt the drop in caribou numbers, some groups have proposed culling wolves. But scientists say that wildlife managers would end up trading one problem for another. Without wolves, deer would soon overtake the landscape. “Modifying landscape-level human-use patterns,” Wasser believes, “may be more effective at managing the ecosystem for caribou than intentional removal of wolves.” In other words, humans need to clear out of many sections of the forest. Crossings of the ways Lucy Lake near Auden is lands’ end for a caribou–wolf research day in the field. Not a caribou is stirring, however, and early the next morning, the scien- tists return to Thunder Bay. Their drive takes them through the boreal forest and then they head south on Route 11 into stands of mixed conif- erous and deciduous trees. Suddenly, something darts across Route 11. It stops ever-so-briefly to glance at the researchers’ car before vanishing into Brent Patterson a birch forest. Award-winning science journalist Cheryl A previous version of this article Here, where fir trees are few, it’s not Lyn Dybas, an ecologist and Fellow of the appeared in Lake Superior magazine. International League of Conservation a caribou that’s come to send off the Writers, also writes for National biologists. Far south of mainland cari- Geographic, National Wildlife, bou range, loping among the moose— BioScience, The Washington Post and it’s a wolf. n many other publications.

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