Government Programs | Hundreds of Animals Killed in Effort to Help Caribou

In recent years, hundreds of wolves, bears and coyotes, as well as other animals, have been killed as part of Quebec government programs to help caribou survive. But the Environment Ministry does not know whether these controversial measures, which aim to control deer predation, are effective.

In Gaspésie, “168 coyotes were trapped as part of winter trapping in 2023” and between “38 and 144 coyotes” are trapped each summer to protect caribou, according to data from the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks.

Black bears, between “23 and 110” per year “as part of summer trapping”, are also killed to protect mountain caribou in this region.

Wolves are also being eliminated to help caribou populations. For example, since 2020, “85 wolves have been harvested by trappers in the Charlevoix region” and between 2011 and 2019, 44 wolves were killed in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

But these predation control programs, which have existed for several years, even for decades in the case of the Gaspé, have not been able to limit the decline of caribou.

Worse, in the case of the Gaspé, “today, predators, in addition to being more abundant, are more effective,” according to Professor Martin-Hugues St-Laurent, whose work focuses on the impacts of habitat alteration on the ecology of large mammals such as caribou.

The man who heads the animal ecology research program at the University of Quebec in Rimouski (UQAR) stressed that eliminating predators can hardly be effective if the caribou habitat continues to be altered.

“From 1990 to today, we have harvested approximately 50 to 60% of the old forests that were around the Gaspésie park, so it is certain that while we are removing the predators, if we harvest half of the forest, we are counteracting the positive effect of predator control, so we have worked a little backwards,” explained Martin-Hugues St-Laurent.

The ministry does not know whether its measures are effective.

The Canadian Press questioned the Environment Ministry on the effectiveness of caribou predation control measures.

In an email exchange, the ministry’s communications director, Ève Morin Desrosiers, responded that “the effects of actions targeting caribou predators are only perceptible after several years of intensive and sustained control, which is not currently the case.”

For the ministry, “intensive control” means that the program “targets a significant reduction in predator density and covers large areas.”

The ministry spokesperson also provided this clarification: “Considering that the ministry and its partners are not currently deploying such intensive programs […]it is not possible to evaluate the effect of this measure in Quebec on the survival rates of adult caribou or on the recruitment rate.”

Programs that work if you kill a lot of predators

Martin-Hugues St-Laurent explained that there is “a link between the harvest of individuals, coyotes, bears or wolves and the increase in the quality of the caribou herd, but for it to really work, we have to push the machine really hard. It requires a harvest of predators that is very, very, very significant.”

Elsewhere in the country, controlling caribou predators has sometimes led to better health of herds.

For example, in the early 1980s in Yukon, the government implemented a culling program that reduced the wolf population “by 83 to 86 percent,” allowing the Finlayson caribou population, which was estimated at about 2,000, to nearly double and halt its decline.

This is what we can read in an article published in the newspaper Conservation Science and Practice in 2022, whose title is Efficacy and ethics of intensive predator management to save endangered caribou and in which Professor Saint-Laurent participated.

This article also reports that “a review of wolf management programs in western North America concluded that wolf removal would be effective only if 65 to 80 percent of wolves were removed over a sufficient area and duration, typically 4 years.”

The study also says that to allow a caribou population to grow after the majority of predators have been removed from its range, “the underlying mechanism of excessive predation must be addressed” and “for many caribou populations, this will require habitat restoration or reestablishment” to reduce “the predator’s hunting efficiency.”

In other words, for predator control programs to work, caribou habitat must be restored, rather than continuing to disrupt the animal by cutting down trees in its habitat.

Counterproductive measures?

Biologist and wildlife photographer Hugues Deglaire is one of those who questions the relevance of eliminating animals in an attempt to save others.

He worked as a naturalist for 5 years in the caribou habitat at Gaspésie National Park, where predator control programs are in place.

“I had daily questions, I climbed mountains almost every day and it tortured me because I said to myself: “but we are probably doing anything.”

By eliminating large predators, we risk causing “lots of unpredictable impacts on other elements of the ecosystem,” added Hugues Deglaire, who is one of the co-founders of the Quebec Association for the Protection and Observation of Wildlife (AQPOF).

According to the organization, predator control programs can sometimes produce the opposite effect of what is intended.

“Coyotes tend to live in families and even a bit in packs” and “when they feel persecuted, they will separate, and often in pairs,” so “instead of having one family with one breeding pair, you’re going to have three families, with three breeding pairs,” so after a few years, there will be more predators, explained Mr. Deglaire.

This assumption is widespread among animal protection groups that oppose the trapping of canines.

“It is known that reproduction will be stimulated, because each remaining individual has access to more resources,” which therefore induces “better physical condition and better investment in survival and reproduction,” indicated Martin-Hugues St-Laurent.

However, the professor of animal ecology added this nuance: “It is extremely rare for abundance to exceed the numbers seen before the control program. This question is complex and often poorly documented or documented in a biased manner by certain animal rights or ethical organizations.”

Trapped martens, foxes and lynxes

Hugues Deglaire explained that he has noticed that animals that are not predators of caribou are accidentally trapped.

“Snare traps are not selective,” because “a snare for wolves or coyotes can also catch martens, foxes or lynx,” explained the biologist and wildlife photographer who has also often observed animals suffering due to predator traps.

Asked about the subject, the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment indicated that “it does indeed happen that captures of non-target species are made”, but that “the trapping methods used nevertheless aim to minimise these accidental captures, for example by selecting specific trapping devices or by including systems allowing release”.

The Canadian Press asked Environment Minister Benoit Charette’s office if it had any information that shows caribou predator control is working.

The cabinet simply responded that “population management measures such as predator control are part of the ministry’s recommendations for caribou protection” and that “this type of intervention is also recommended elsewhere in Canada.”