no1important said:
Alberta environmentalists are turning to Ottawa for help in trying to protect a group of endangered caribou.
A coalition of groups, led by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, says Alberta's woodland caribou population had declined by 90 per cent since the '60s and is at imminent risk of extinction.
There are fewer than 3,000 caribou left in the province.
"What we'll be doing with the petition is providing the minister with the evidence that indicates the nature and rate of the caribou decline and asking for an emergency order," he said.
Environmentalists say oil and gas developments and logging has encroached on the caribou's habitat in northern Alberta and caused a drop in their numbers. [/teaser]
Click link for rest of article.
I hope they succeed. The Caribou need protecting and since all the Alberta government thinks about is money and not the environment, wild animals or people, Ottawa must step in and protect them. Way to go Ralphie you
Maybe Ralphie is just listening to what the scientists are so far saying about the caribou situation.
"In Alberta, the woodland caribou has been listed as endangered because its survival is in question. Understanding the factors that limit its existence is essential to developing strategies that ensure the long-term survival of this species. Caribou population growth is constantly affected by a variety of natural and human-caused factors, including predation, hunting, vehicle-kills, habitat change, disturbance, parasites and disease, and climate change. One of these factors is limiting if it prevents a caribou population from reaching the maximum size the habitat will support (carrying capacity). It is seldom the situation that a population increases or decreases in size due to one limiting factor alone and this is the case for caribou in Alberta.
The number of research studies of Alberta's woodland caribou populations has increased substantially in the past decade resulting in a greater understanding of the factors limiting population growth. In Alberta, scientists and managers agree that predation by wolves is the major cause of death of caribou that inhabit natural, undisturbed habitat." (
http://www3.gov.ab.ca/srd/fw/threatsp/wcar_lim.html)
Look at the source:
http://www.sierralegal.org/m_archive/pr05_12_21.html which claims that: "Woodland caribou, cousins of Santa’s reindeer and one of the most emblematic species of Canada’s boreal wilderness, are at particular risk of extinction in Alberta, where their numbers have dropped by about 60% since the 1960s." and "The petition marks the second legal action by Sierra Legal to test the strength of the federal Species at Risk Act, following a recently launched federal court case earlier this month to seek emergency action to protect British Columbia’s endangered spotted owl."
If you look at the petition here:
http://www.sierralegal.org/reports/sara_petition_re_alberta_woodland_caribou.pdf paragraph 25 (page 14), it says that the 1980 population of caribou in Alberta did not exceed 1500 - 3500 and the linked article claims the population is currently about 3000. That hardly seems like a decline over the last 25 years.
