After a one-year postponement, the operation to capture pregnant females from the Gaspésie caribou herd is underway. The objective is to ensure that births take place in captivity, in order to reduce the mortality of fawns in this population on the verge of extinction.
According to information confirmed at Duty by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, “caribou capture operations are off to a good start”. It is added that “information concerning the capture operations will be disseminated after the end of the operations which are scheduled for April 7”.
It was therefore not possible to know how many females could be captured and penned. “It is the capture conditions, the gestation of females and the location of the caribou that will determine the number of caribou in the enclosure at the end of the work,” it is emphasized.
According to the information available, everything indicates that this delicate operation is taking place according to the procedures already specified by the ministry. Concretely, helicopter overflights are necessary to spot the caribou. Subsequently, catches can be carried out with a net thrower by experts in this type of operation. On site, an ultrasound can then be performed to confirm pregnancy. If this proves to be true, the female can be transported to one of the two enclosures provided and the animal is then placed under the supervision of a veterinarian.
These females, after the birth scheduled for the next few weeks, will be kept in captivity until August or September with their fawn, before being released. The aim is to ensure that young deer are able to avoid predators, which represent a significant threat to this population.
Rescue strategy
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 says he has confidence in the expertise of those who will be responsible for capturing deer. “They are professionals and I have full confidence in them. We must also not forget that we have already carried out caribou capture operations in Quebec. We did it to recreate the Charlevoix herd, which had disappeared, we did it in the Val-d’Or region and we do it to equip animals with telemetric collars, as part of research, ” he recalls.
“But it’s obvious that we can’t just capture the females and put them in a pen,” adds Mr. St-Laurent. “If we release these animals into an ecosystem that is still as altered as what we have today, we will not win. We will simply delay the inevitable. The strategy must therefore provide for the conservation of habitats. »
According to him, this strategy must include a moratorium on cutting in caribou 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 cut zones and the roads to reach the caribou more easily.
Director of conservation for the Society for Nature and Parks of Quebec, Pier-Olivier Boudreault agrees and deplores the continuation of commercial logging in the region. “The cuts planned by the government in and near Gaspésie caribou habitat go in the opposite direction of what should be done to save the population. Gaspésie caribou need a break. We must stop rejuvenating the forest in this sector, stop building new roads, and instead seek to create protected areas, close roads and restore habitat as much as possible,” he explains.
Herds in captivity
This caribou population is in an almost hopeless situation. It would have barely more than thirty animals and its decline has been steadily increasing for several years now. Its extinction would mean the end of the last herd living south of the St. Lawrence.
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. She has nine animals, after the three births of the last two years.
In Charlevoix, where the last 16 caribou from this isolated herd were placed in captivity in the winter of 2022 in a 0.2 km enclosure2, five fawns were born in the past few weeks and two other females are still pregnant. A young caribou, however, died a few days after birth.
In both Val-d’Or and Charlevoix, isolated herds of woodland caribou have been placed in captivity after suffering major declines in recent years due to disturbances in their habitats. For the moment, the Legault government has no plan for the eventual release of these two populations, who live in regions where the forestry industry is very present.
The government must present a “strategy” in June to try to save the populations of woodland caribou in the province. Many of these have experienced marked declines in recent years. The federal government had demanded a plan from Quebec to ensure the protection of the habitat essential to the survival and recovery of the species.