Earth Equity News

Scientists Warn Caribou Collapse Not Unlike Disappearance of Cod Stocks. By Bob Weber, CanadianPress, November 6, 2009. "Once a gigantic bloom of life that sustained entire societies, the cod fishery was closed in 1992 after a near-total collapse of fish stocks... Recent surveys on two major caribou herds in Canada's North suggest the same thing may be happening there... Nine of Canada's 11 herds are in decline. Concern has been building for years. But this summer, survey results carried a distinct whiff of impending catastrophe... Northwest Territories biologists estimated the Bathurst herd of the central barrens had fallen from over 120,000 animals in 2006 to 32,000... The news was even worse to the east... A herd that numbered 280,000 animals only 15 years ago was simply gone... Caribou herds have always fluctuated, sometimes wildly. The George River herd in Arctic Quebec grew from as few as 5,000 animals in the early 1960s to 700,000 by the 1990s (although it's now shrinking). But new factors are putting wobbles in the caribou cycle. Recent research is beginning to show how climate change, aboriginal hunting and industrial development may be preventing populations from recovering... The territory is warming up faster than almost anywhere else on the globe. Temperatures already show a two-degree average increase since 1948 and higher increases further north. Research also shows that warmer conditions are allowing southern shrubs to spread north and take over from plants such as lichen. Shrubs produce more plant material, but they aren't very good caribou food... Winter changes are even more significant. Warmer temperatures mean heavier, icier snow... not fluffy and easy to kick aside when you want to dig through it to get your food... Higher temperatures also improve conditions for warble flies, biting, bloodsucking bugs that drive caribou crazy and impair their ability to breed by preventing them from building their strength."