The operation to capture and pen caribou females from the Gaspé Peninsula turned out to be more complicated than expected, despite what the government claims. Experts have had difficulty locating individuals in this isolated population, and four of the six females held in temporary captivity may not be pregnant. However, there are plans to repeat the experience in 2024.
After a one-year postponement, the operation to capture pregnant females from the Gaspésie caribou herd finally took place from March 18 to April 6. The objective was to ensure that births take place in captivity, in order to reduce the deaths of fawns in this population on the verge of extinction. It has at most 34 individuals.
In a press release published on Monday, the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP) simply indicated that “this operation took place as planned and six female caribou were able to be captured and put in a maternity pen. The press release adds that “the females will give birth there and will be kept in captivity for a period of five to six months in order to protect the fawns from predation during the first critical months of their life. All the caribou will be released at the end of the summer”.
Complex operations
In reality, however, not everything went as planned during this unprecedented operation for the Gaspésie herd. “The operations were more complex because they required more research,” explains biologist Mathieu Morin, of the MELCCFP, in an interview with the Duty. Although the experts had carried out operations to locate the animals during the winter, they had since changed sectors. What’s more, some were isolated or found in hard-to-reach areas, such as wooded or mountainous areas.
The caribou were captured by helicopter using a net gun operated by an expert in this type of operation. But it was impossible to perform the ultrasounds on site to certify the pregnancy, as planned. “The initial plan was to do the manipulations and the ultrasound at the capture site, but that was not possible, for technical and security reasons. We therefore transported all the females under sedation to the enclosures, in order to carry out the manipulations in optimal conditions,” summarizes Mr. Morin.
Pregnancy was subsequently confirmed for only two of the six penned females. For the others, there remains a “doubt” which requires hormonal analyzes which are still in progress.
In the end, whether they are pregnant or not, all these females will be kept in captivity until the end of the summer, specifies the biologist of the ministry. “They are gregarious animals, so if we reduce the number of animals in the enclosure by leaving only the two pregnant females, that risks generating additional stress,” he argues.
The pen in which the animals are located, and which is accessible only to authorized personnel, is however near a breeding area of the herd. In this context, even if the ministry cannot predict how the animals will behave when they are released, it is specified that the females are now equipped with a telemetric collar, which will make it possible to follow their movements.
Stop the cuts
Even if not all the females (whose number is estimated at around fifteen) were captured, Mathieu Morin underlines that “all in all, our level of satisfaction is very high”. He adds that the operation should be repeated in 2024, since a single attempt is not sufficient to verify the effectiveness of such an operation.
Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Quebec at Rimouski and specialist in research on this threatened species, Martin-Hugues St-Laurent has already explained on several occasions that this type of enclosure will not be enough to avoid extinction. of the last caribou population south of the St. Lawrence.
According to him, the strategy must include a moratorium on cutting in deer habitat, which goes beyond the limits of the Gaspésie national park alone. He also pleads for the closure of forest roads and the control of predators, who take advantage in particular of the cutting areas and the roads to reach the caribou more easily.
In addition to this attempt to rescue the Gaspésie caribou, the Quebec government has decided to place the last caribou in the Val-d’Or region in an enclosure. It has nine animals. In Charlevoix, the last 16 animals were placed in captivity in the winter of 2022 in a 0.2 km² enclosure. No release plan is planned in these habitats that have been heavily degraded by the logging industry. Elsewhere in Quebec, the decline continues for this species, pending the tabling in June of a provincial “strategy” for its protection.