When it comes to woodland caribou, a recurring point is “it’s the forest industry’s fault.” This vision seems rather myopic to me when considering the history of the woodland caribou over the last century and a half.
I first present to you the following quote from the book History of hunting in Quebec (Paul-Louis Martin, 1980, Boréal Express) on page 69. “The absence of large deer from the inhabited area was already an acquired fact under the French Regime while, from the 17e century, they had been mercilessly hunted down either to feed the first arrivals or to supply the trade in skins and leathers. The new settlers of the 19the century did not act differently from their ancestors and repeated, 200 years apart, massive and continuous removals from the populations of natives and caribou of the newly granted territories. […] In the Eastern Townships, Outaouais, Charlevoix, Baie-des-Chaleurs, the populations of moose, caribou and bears, which had survived two centuries of periodic presence of Europeans, had to endure a virtual war of extermination: the white-tailed deer disappeared from Brome and Missisquoi, the caribou became rare in the Appalachians and the Notre-Dame mountains, retreating into the heart of the [Chic-Chocs] […]. »
The following quote, taken from the same work, is part of a section entitled “Half a century of butchery” in the chapter devoted to caribou, on page 167. It focuses, in particular, on the history of this species in Laurentides Park (the current wildlife reserve). “ […] At dawn of the 20e century, all of America was more than ever the land of pillage and waste. Here is how the 10,000 heads of the vast herd of caribou in Laurentides Park (ironically created to protect them) disappeared, in less than fifteen years: “It went on for days. We were killing them by the hundreds. Men were loaded with caribou tongues. You just had to start by taking down the leaders, and when you knew how to do it, you could take down a whole herd.” […] Similar killings were repeated across Quebec, dealing the final blow to animals whose habitat, like a skin of sorrow, had been constantly shrinking for a century already. »
In a 1956 article published in the Canadian naturalist (“The Gaspé caribou I. History and distribution”), on page 229, Gaston Moisan presents a summary of the causes leading to the considerable decrease in woodland caribou populations in the American Northeast: “ […] South of the St. Lawrence, caribou were found as far as northern New Hampshire. As the Indian retreated before the plowman, and the forest gave way to agriculture, the caribou retreated to less fertile and less accessible places. Later, logging operations were established at the head of all the major rivers, and professional hunters were hired to feed the loggers with the region’s big game. When the disappearance of the game became evident, laws were passed to prevent the killing of the caribou, but the damage was done. This is the condensed history of what happened successively in the State of Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. »
He also gives some details for the specific situation of caribou in Gaspésie, on page 231: “ […] Caribou hunting was again permitted in Gaspésie in 1934, but in 1937, Gaspésie Park was established and all hunting was prohibited within the boundaries of the Park. Finally, caribou hunting was prohibited in 1949 throughout the province, and it still is. It was impossible for us to find exact data on the fluctuations of this caribou population. According to old guides who have been trapping and hunting in Gaspésie for fifty years, caribou were once hunted throughout the peninsula. Between 1900 and 1915, it was shipped “by tank”.
It is not just the caribou that has suffered from colonization and hunting. If we trust Father Léon Provancher, founder of the journal Canadian naturalist, all the wildlife suffered. He explains this in a text entitled “Animals that go extinct” in the second issue of this review published in 1870, on page 91: “ […] the Canadian deer (Elaphus canadensis, the elk]) which was once hunted on the banks of the St. Lawrence is now only found in the West; the beaver and the moose (Alces Machlis) have already become rare there; the bobcat (Lynx rufus) is no longer found east of the St. Lawrence, the turkey which was so common on the shores of Lake Huron is no longer found there very rarely, etc., etc. There is no doubt that the war of extermination that is being waged on all sides against these inhabitants of our forests, combined with the developments of colonization which are taking away their pensions, will soon result in the disappearance of more than one of their races from our countries, and probably the extinction of some of them. »
As we can note, the causes of the historic decline in woodland caribou populations do not rest solely on the shoulders of the forestry industry. Far from it in fact. It is also, and for many, a story of hunting and colonization.