NEW RESEARCH SHOWS HABITAT LOSS DRIVING
SOUTH PEACE CARIBOU TOWARDS EXTINCTION
Eight environmental groups, Valhalla Wilderness Society, Pacific Wild, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Wilderness Committee, Wildlife Defence League, The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals, Wolf Awareness Inc., and Bears Matter, applaud a recently published scientific report that reveals how much habitat the caribou in the South Peace region have lost. The title of the report says it all: ‘Witnessing Extinction – Cumulative impacts across landscapes and the future loss of an evolutionarily significant unit of woodland caribou in Canada’ (Johnson et al., 2015).
“The findings of the report are shocking, but this is the very first time that, for a rapidly disappearing caribou population, we’ve had actual measurements of the amount and kind of habitat they’ve lost,” says Anne Sherrod, spokesperson for the Valhalla Wilderness Society. “Now that we know the habitat loss is severe, it puts a heavy responsibility on government to do something about it.” Full Text