Ministry Mismanagement at its best

[hardnocks]

I think some critters have an expiry date.Used to be nothing but Mountain cariboo up around Hazelton at the turn of the century, then they just faded away. Moose started moving in big time but down low. I left there in 1999 and white tail were just starting to show up and mulies were decreasing. Now they have elk there for crisake. And moose are declining. Weird, some things you just can`t save.

i be leave this is right . moose started moving south long before their was any amount of logging . ...

[Wild one]

I think some critters have an expiry date.Used to be nothing but Mountain cariboo up around Hazelton at the turn of the century, then they just faded away. Moose started moving in big time but down low. I left there in 1999 and white tail were just starting to show up and mulies were decreasing. Now they have elk there for crisake. And moose are declining. Weird, some things you just can`t save.

This maybe an unpopular view but the species on earth have been ever changing since the beginning so there might be some truth to it

[dana]

There were battles over caribou hunting grounds between the Shuswap and the Chilcotin precontact. Why? Because the caribou were declining. With numbers already down, the Southern herds took a huge kick in the 20's and 30's when successive hot years brought huge wildfires. Moose could not resist the smell of all that lush growth and wander south to take advantage of it. Following the moose were the wolves. As the moose fed high in the summer their range overlaped that of the caribou. The wolves found the caribou the easier prey species and the decline was fast and furious and they haven't been able to bounce back in all the years since. Nature is the reason for the decline. Fire didn't get rid of their food, but it instead brought the moose which then brought the wolf. This was way before roads and logging and snowmobiles and heleskiing and mountainbikers and hikers and quads and sidebysides and all the things that politicians like to blame. Lets be honest people. Nature is what did the caribou in. One could say man played the role in the last 30 years because man has refused to come to the aid of the caribou and manage the wolves that kill the caribou. One can say that Environmental Orgs have played a huge role in that they would rather we waste gobs of money capturing and collaring wolves and studying them instead of killing them.

[hardnocks]

i think that is spot on ..dana

[horshur]

eGroot said the ministry has not yet decided what to do with the two remaining bulls in the Purcells. The size of the animals, he said, makes them difficult to move, and only one dominant male is needed for the breeding process.

what the hell, it’s a stock trailer..these caribou are much smaller then a cow or a horse.

[MattB]

So then the main problem was human caused.

Yes. I dont think there is any denying that. But we also culd have done more to minimize predator growth and access to habitats with caribou. None of that happened. If it wasn't going to be logging then the past fire suppression would have led to habitat losses thru forest fires eventually. Nothing stays static forever.

[northof49]

All the bleading heart wolf loving enviro freaks were ultimately the cause because the politicians were too scared of pissing them off and losing the popular vote.

Evolution....natural selection...survival of the stongest/fittest. Mountain caribou are too soft....easy pickings. They have not been able to evolve fast enough to survive the onslaught of predation and are destined to disappear without sustained predator management. All people can do is help by slowing it down and reducing preds.....if that is what society wants. Unfortunately all the wolf lovers tend to stand in the way. I find it amazing that these are then the same folks crying over species extirpation.

Case in point:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4915683

[Bugle M In]

There were battles over caribou hunting grounds between the Shuswap and the Chilcotin precontact. Why? Because the caribou were declining. With numbers already down, the Southern herds took a huge kick in the 20's and 30's when successive hot years brought huge wildfires. Moose could not resist the smell of all that lush growth and wander south to take advantage of it. Following the moose were the wolves. As the moose fed high in the summer their range overlaped that of the caribou. The wolves found the caribou the easier prey species and the decline was fast and furious and they haven't been able to bounce back in all the years since. Nature is the reason for the decline. Fire didn't get rid of their food, but it instead brought the moose which then brought the wolf. This was way before roads and logging and snowmobiles and heleskiing and mountainbikers and hikers and quads and sidebysides and all the things that politicians like to blame. Lets be honest people. Nature is what did the caribou in. One could say man played the role in the last 30 years because man has refused to come to the aid of the caribou and manage the wolves that kill the caribou. One can say that Environmental Orgs have played a huge role in that they would rather we waste gobs of money capturing and collaring wolves and studying them instead of killing them.

Well said Dana, I think that you are bang on in this view.
There was a decline happening, and probably inevitable.
Accelerated quicker by man in the later years.
The last chance those creatures had was a full on removal of all preds in the area.
(Lets face it, they are probably the dumbest of all the ungulates).
And that would have been a 365 day a year, for years, type of endeavor.
Maybe if we go from the planet warming up, back to an ice age, maybe they will return again???
(just kidding, but you never know)

[sizedoes matter]

Well said ^^^
I think nature will eventually fix itself. It’s the way it’s always been. It may take 5 , 10 maybe 50 thousand years or more but eventually there will be another major event that will cause another ice age. Many species will go extinct as in the past. Just the way it goes.