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Threats
Loss of habitat,
interruption of
migratory routes,
overhunting
STATUS:
ESA -- ENDANGERED
(as subspecies caribou)
SIZE:
Weight:
600 pounds (272 kg) -- females are smaller
Length:
8 feet (2.4 m)
Shoulder Height
4 feet (1.2 m)
HABITAT":
Arctic tundra and coniferous forests
POPULATION:
3.5-4 million worldwide, but some herds and subspecies at very low numbers
CURRENT RANGE:
High latitudes of North America and Eurasia
(map shows ranges
of N. American subspecies)
CONSERVATION:
Transplantation experiments to replenish herds
Although the American herd of woodland
caribou is at great
risk of extinction, the
ESA lists only one subspecies (R. t. caribou) as Endangered.
You can see caribou
in two dioramas in the Museum's Hall of North American Mammals. One is the woodland caribou, the subspecies that lives in the Selkirk range, northern British Columbia, and the Yukon. It's also known as Osborn's caribou (in honor of the American Museum of Natural History's fourth president, Henry Fairfield Osborn). The other caribou diorama displays Grant's caribou, which lives
on the Alaskan Peninsula.
This subspecies is not listed as Endangered.
Reindeer are semi-domesticated caribou. They live in Russia, Finland, and northern Scandinavia.
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The Caribou's Decline
Caribou once ranged across most of the northern hemisphere. Today -- as you can see on the range map on the facing page -- their numbers are considerably reduced, and they are extinct on many of the large islands they once inhabited -- Britain and Ireland, for example. The vast herds that used to roam Canada and the U.S. south of the St. Lawrence River have almost completely disappeared. The reasons are not mysterious. As human populations have grown, our activities have had a profound effect on the caribou. Oil pipelines stretching across Canada, Alaska, and Russia block caribou migration routes. Hunting, legal and illegal, takes a tremendous toll. In the U.S., one subspecies of caribou holds on by the barest of threads.
A Place Like No Other
A patch of forest covering several hundred square miles in the Selkirk Mountains of Washington and Idaho is the only remaining forest ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest that still has a full complement of native mammals. You can find the same trees and animals there today that you would if you took a time machine back many thousands of years: soaring spruce and fir trees, grizzly bears, lynx, wolverines, wolves, martins, fishers, and the spectacular woodland caribou. The old-growth trees are much in demand by lumber companies. People are attracted by the area's unspoiled beauty, and they're building vacation homes, lodges, and roads. All of this puts tremendous pressure on the forest and the creatures in it. Of the Selkirk's mammals, only the caribou is officially listed as Endangered -- less than 100 of them remain -- but in fact, the whole ecosystem is in trouble.
The woodland caribou's drastic decline in the Selkirk Mountains shows clearly how ecosystems are thrown out of balance by human activities. Logging roads, for example, are often death traps for caribou -- particularly in the winter when snow piles high on either side of the narrow roads. Drawn by the salt used to melt ice on the roads, caribou get caught between the snow banks and can't avoid the big logging trucks. Both male and female caribou have antlers, and the smaller females are often mistaken for elk and shot by hunters. The death of a reproducing female is critical to such a small population because it means the death of potential future generations as well.
Lumber companies have suggested clearing out dead and dying trees in old-growth forests instead of cutting live trees. But the lichen that grow only on those dead trees are a major food source for woodland caribou. In an ecosystem, all elements are interdependent. Interfering with one aspect of the system, even though it may seem innocuous, has repercussions throughout the system.
In the 1980s, the U.S. Forest Service began a controversial program to replenish the stock of woodland caribou in the Selkirk Mountains. About five dozen woodland caribou from Canadian herds have been imported and released in the Selkirk forest. Some biologists say that this is a bad idea, since they have destroyed the genetic integrity of the original endangered population. Others point out that if the forest can't support the few caribou remaining, it can't support additional numbers, either. But the translocations continue, with the idea that in order to have some chance of success, the caribou population must be increased to a viable size.
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