Alberta Canada uses Strychnine and Compound 1080 to Kill Wolves

A 10,000-signature petition is urging the province to do more to protect wolves. How will government balance that with caribou preservation?

In December, Banff-Cochrane MLA Cameron Westhead tabled a petition of 10,000 signatures pleading for the provincial government to protect Alberta’s wolves.

But Alberta has a delicate balancing act on its hands — halting wolf culls could mean the end of the woodland caribou.

It’s not that one species is being given preference over another, said Environment and Parks regional resource manager Dave Hervieux, but controlling wolves is imperative to the survival of the caribou population.

Caribou used to roam the eastern slopes of the Rockies south to Cochrane. The population has been slowly dwindling for many years, but it’s plummeted in the last 15 or so thanks to human-induced habitat changes, including more oil and gas development, housing and roads.

Those landscape changes profited wolves over caribou. Now, the herd’s existence in Alberta and northern B.C. hangs in the balance.

“We have to take some measures to reduce the levels of predation and reduce mortality, or they will cease to exist. It is absolutely dire,” Hervieux says.

Aside from a small pocket in the province’s southwest, wolf numbers in Alberta remain steady.

“They’re widespread, abundant, have strong populations, they’re resilient and can repopulate very quickly,” Hervieux says.

As a result, the annual reduction of the wolf population needs to be quite high.

“I wouldn’t say we’re favouring caribou over wolves, but we’re trying not to continue the process of population extinction of woodland caribou in Alberta,” he says.

“In no way is any of our wolf management plan work for caribou endangering conservation.”

The petition tabled in the legislature urges the government to prohibit wolf bounties, set humane standards for snares, reduce both the hunting and trapping seasons, establish a wolf population inventory, educate ranchers about non-lethal wolf control measures, and introduce legislation to protect wolves on public lands.

It also called on the province to stop using poison for wolf control — a strategy Hervieux says is limited to some winters in the Little Smoky Caribou Range, when population targets aren’t met because not enough wolves have been culled (typically, that means tracking wolves from the air and shooting them).

Kirsten Rose from Wolf Matters, which supports the petition, argues it’s tough to know exactly how many wolves are out there.

She’s particularly concerned about the use of poison, which runs the risk of leaching into water sources and killing other animals.

“Every species out there contributes in some way to ecosystems … but with the wolf, it’s almost like a witch hunt,” she says.

While Rose doesn’t think it’s likely all of the petition’s demands will be met, she would like to see the government consider them as it irons out a new wolf management plan.

“At the moment they’re just not using science-based information to make their decisions,” she says.

Source: Caribou vs. wolf: Alberta’s delicate balancing act | Edmonton Journal