Quebec caribou population continues to decline: Environment Ministry

Quebec's caribou populations, which have been heavily disturbed by human activity, continue to decline, according to new inventories to be released Monday by the province's Environment Ministry.

The Canadian Press consulted the inventories of caribou populations carried out in 2021 and 2022 in the Gasp, Nord-du-Qubec and Cte-Nord regions, and in all three regions, the populations continue to decline, mainly due to the destruction of their habitat.

Only the Caniapiscau caribou population is reportedly growing.

The ministry conducted the inventories using airplanes, helicopters, cameras deployed on the territory and, in some cases, telemetric tracking (i.e. using GPS collars).

Outarde and Caniapiscau caribou

The Outarde populations refer to several herds of woodland caribou that live in the Cte-Nord and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions. The ministry estimates their total number to be between 803 and 1,180, "distributed among 67 groups of 1 to 85 individuals."

This number is declining and "below the estimated thresholds for population self-sufficiency."

How much are these populations declining?

It is difficult to determine, according to the executive director of wildlife management coordination at theEnvironment Ministry.

"This is the first inventory where we did exactly this size and this area, so before that, we didn't have such precise sampling, so it's difficult to have robust comparisons," said Carl Patenaude-Levasseur.

However, the ministry estimatesan "average 11 per cent decrease in the population per year."

According to the inventory documents, the main disturbances to the habitat of this caribou population are forest roads, logging and slash-and-burn (clearing by fire).

In these areas, the logging industry has removed much of the old forest and replaced it with younger trees, depriving the caribou of habitat and food. Also, logging roads encourage the movement of the caribou's natural predators, such as bears and wolves.

According to the Environment Ministry, "the low abundance south of the 51st parallel poses a risk of local extinction of caribou groups found in the southern part of the species' range on the North Shore."

The only good news is that 329 caribou from the Caniapiscau population have been identified in the northern part of the territory, but surveyors estimate that the actual size of the population may be 484.

The area surveyed at the end of winter 2022 represented only 8.2 per cent of the range of this population, but the data is sufficient for the ministry to estimate that this population, which lives partly in protected areas, is growing.

The Nottaway Herd

In northern Quebec, data from aerial surveys conducted by the ministry's teams allow it to estimate the Nottaway herd's woodland caribou population at 282 individuals, compared to 308 in 2016.

The population could therefore have declined by eight per cent in six years. But scientific models using satellite telemetry provide much more pessimistic estimates.

This leads the ministry to say that "the exact magnitude of the decline is difficult to establish with certainty" and "it is possible to estimate that population abundance may have declined by order of magnitude of eight to 28 per cent over the past six years."

The Nottoway caribou study area extends into the traditional territory of the James Bay Cree: from near Matagami in the south, to near the Rupert River in the north, and from the Harricana River in the west to Evans, Soscumica and Matagami lakes in the east.

A total of 39 groups of caribou were located during the survey, and group sizes ranged from one to 21 individuals.

The department estimates that the survival rate is 81 per cent for females and 71 per cent for males, which "remains relatively low for both segments of the adult population and will require special attention over the next few years to identify potential problems."

Mountain caribou of the Gasp Peninsula

The mountain caribou of the Gasp Peninsula live in the Chic-Chocs and McGerrigle mountain ranges. This population was designated as threatened in 2009 in Quebec.

"It is an isolated and extremely precarious population," said Carl Patenaude-Levasseur. "We saw 33 in 2021, compared to 42 the year before with the same methods, which indicates some rate of decline."

The fall 2021 survey, conducted by aerial survey and the deployment of 74 cameras, was conducted in three areas: Mount Albert, Mount McGerrigle and Mount Logan.

"The high mortality rate of calves due to predation, the relatively high mortality rate of adults, the small size of the population, the lack of exchange within the population due to fragmentation of the territory, and the lack of preferential unfragmented habitats, jeopardize the maintenance of this population," the ministry's inventory documents state.

The researchers also point out that a recent study shows that the area of habitat for black bears and coyotes, predators of caribou, "has increased within a 30-kilometre radius of the legal habitat of the Gasp caribou over the past 30 years."

It is also stated that "the transformation of the forest landscape may have contributed to the exacerbation of predation pressure on caribou, particularly on calves."

The Quebec woodland caribou recovery team estimated that between 5,635 and 9,981 caribou remained in the territory in the period from 2005 to 2016.

However, these estimates no longer correspond to reality, and the inventories being carried out in several regions of Quebec will provide a clearer picture of the extent of the decline of this emblematic animal.

The Environment Ministry plans to deliver the strategy for woodland and mountain caribou in the summer of 2023.