Dear Editor,
I was shocked to learn that the South Selkirk caribou herd that migrates south between BC and the US is now down to only three femaile animals, according to CBC News, Bob Keating on April 16, 2018, titled, Caribou have almost vanished from the U.S. – a warning for Canada.
Millions of dollars have been spent on this herd, which originally numbered in the thousands in the 18th century, diminished to a hundred head before biologists were brought into manage the declining numbers.
Management included several approaches.
New caribou have been introduced into this herd on three separate occasions, logging and snowmobiling has been banned within most of their range.
Aside from the obvious stresses on the herd, global warming was also always named as a factor for this particular herds decline.
As a result of climate change, the maternity pens constructed to help the caribou calves, ended up covered in snow and unusable.
As a result less than 20 per cent of the caribou calves that were born survived, due to wolf predation.
The biologists in charge decided that the moose in the area were attracting the wolves and allowed hunters to kill nearly all of the moose population.
Much to the biologists surprise, when there were no moose, the wolves turned on the caribou and killed all but three.
I worry when we have educated people making ridiculous decisions like this. I am very worried, decisions like this could affect the human population.
One thing we all know is ‘cold kills’, the 170 plus days of below normal temperatures has killed hundreds if not thousands of newborn bolvine calves this spring in a huge area stretching from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northern United States.
Also it has delayed the seeding of crops which will push grain prices higher and will result in some long season crops to be substituted for shorter season varieties. (remember cold kills).
I also would like to mention that most examples of flora and fauna in the world, are found in the jungles of Ecuador. Ecuador means equator (a hot place).
Just as doctors used to bleed people to make them better when ill (this is what was said to have killed the great President George Washington), it worries me that we are taking the advise from people around the world concerning climate change and global warming, that is based on climate change models and theories that may not be applicable in our current situation.
So we are smart people, let’s be very careful who we believe when it comes to our very human survival. Let’s not be victims of bad science and decisions like the caribou.
Walter Suntjens
Spondin, Ab.
