Showing posts with label Alberta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alberta. Show all posts

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Forest Caribou in Alberta and Habitat Reclamation

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 274-365












Caribou are one of Canada’s most recognizable national symbols, but their populations are under threat in Alberta for a number of reasons, including the effects of industrial development on habitat, the effects of global warming and because they’re increasingly being hunted by wolves which have increased in population and range in response to an increase in numbers of deer and moose, their primary prey.

During oil and gas exploration activities over the past 40 years, fragmentation occurred in the boreal forest as corridors were cut to accommodate seismic exploration and access routes for exploration drilling. 

The Algar Project takes an integrated regional approach, with six companies working together to repair fragmented habitat across an area of land outside of their actual license areas. The project includes a five-year program to replant trees and shrubs along the linear footprint within the Algar Region, covering an area approximately 570 square kilometers (km2) southwest of Fort McMurray.

No much have been done to reclaim the oil land
Scientists studying the ravaged caribou habitat of Alberta's northwestern foothills say they have found so much disturbance from decades of industrial use that restoration of the terrain will have to be selective.

Loss of Bisons on the plane.
Alberta is still selling of the forest. It is possible to do something about it?

Alberta is looking as a post apocalyptic war zone.

Can we do something about it? It is too late?

Deforestation in Alberta is worse than in Brazil

There are more than 16,000 kilometres of seismic lines, cut by the energy industry through the forest, within the study area's 13,000 square kilometres.
About five per cent of range for the Little Smoky and a la Peche caribou herds remains undisturbed — a long way from the federal government's 65 per cent target.
Wolves normally prefer to prey on deer and moose, but seismic lines allow them to penetrate into the deep woods where caribou hide.
Caribou also normally avoid coming within 500 metres of a seismic line, making every line, in effect, a kilometre wide.
In 2012 The oil companies paid 1 billion dollars in rights to drill for oil and leases of land.
Who is going to protect those that cannot protect themselves.
The ministry of the environment is promoting the lease of the lands.
Canada needs to consider a better solutions. It is not only the responsibility of the government to protect the environment.
We can live a prosperous life without destroying the forest and the land and the caribou.
If you look at the attached Environment Canada map (above) of boreal woodland caribou across Canada, it’s Alberta where most of the herds are at highest risk of dying out under current policies. This affects the genetic diversity and viability of neighbouring B.C., the North West Territories and Saskatchewan caribou populations. 
Beyond that, caribou are indicators of whether the boreal and foothills forests are healthy. If we change how these forests are managed so that caribou populations can recover (which Alberta states is its policy goal), then our northern Mackenzie watershed will be healthier, and many other species will benefit too, such as migratory birds that depend on old growth forest and intact wetlands.” 

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