Environmental groups, including Wildsight, sent a letter to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) today calling on the Ministry to complete critical habitat mapping and finalize a recovery strategy for deep-snow dwelling mountain caribou that is more than 10 years overdue.
The ECCC originally promised to identify the areas most critical to the species ongoing survival by the end of 2014, but it has since repeatedly missed and pushed back that deadline. In the meantime, several of British Columbia’s deep-snow caribou herds have been lost, due largely to the destruction of their habitat.
Today’s letter, sent by Ecojustice on behalf of Wildsight, Stand.earth and Wilderness Committee, states that ECCC’s ongoing delays and inaction amount to a “tacit endorsement” of the extirpation of more herds.
The group has given ECCC until March 19, 2025 to publish an amended southern mountain caribou recovery strategy that identifies critical habitat for B.C.’s deep-snow caribou (also known as the ‘Southern Group’), which are the herds most at risk of extinction.
“That might sound soon, but those maps already exist—the B.C. government completed critical habitat maps for its herds in 2020—they’re just not enshrined in the federal recovery strategy yet,” said Eddie Petryshen, Wildsight Conservation Specialist.
Having accurate critical habitat maps is one of the key pieces needed to recover declining caribou herds; without these maps, effective habitat protections can’t be implemented.
B.C. continues to permit logging in caribou ranges despite having completed core caribou habitat mapping. GIS analysis from Wilderness Committee shows 310,120 hectares of critical caribou habitat were logged in B.C. between 2007 and 2023, with 51,313 hectares of that occurring in highly-sensitive core habitat. A recent investigation by Wildsight and Wilderness Committee showed the province has also permitted logging in “no harvest” ungulate winter ranges.
“Canada’s inaction has been catastrophic for caribou and the communities where they are so vital,” said Tegan Hansen, Senior Forest Campaigner at Stand.earth. “As caribou continue to die out, it’s practically impossible to interpret this government’s failure as anything other than signing off on extinction.”
A finalized recovery strategy and critical habitat mapping would give stakeholders, industry and governments much needed clarity around critical caribou habitat. It would set out what needs to be done to slow and eventually reverse the decline of deep snow caribou.
“What we are demanding from Canada is not a favour; it is their legal duty under the Species at Risk Act, and right now, they are failing at their job,” said Lucero Gonzalez, Wilderness Committee Conservation and Policy Campaigner. “Caribou cannot survive on promises and missed deadlines; they need intact, old forests, and they need them now.”
In 2020, the federal government noted that southern mountain caribou had declined 53% over six years. Deep-snow caribou have been hit hardest, with eight of 18 herds extirpated largely within the last two decades.
This is a new low in the federal government’s poor record of protecting and recovering Canada’s endangered wildlife,” said Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon. “Successive environment ministers have unlawfully delayed for more than a decade taking urgently needed steps under the Species at Risk Act to map and protect mountain caribou habitat.”
The ECCC’s current timeline for posting an amended southern mountain caribou recovery strategy is 2026, but deep-snow caribou can’t afford to wait that long.
“Our question to Minister Guilbeault is: will your government’s legacy be to save southern mountain caribou, or to be forever remembered as the government that allowed them to disappear?” said Petryshen.
