Caribou: Why we need to protect this arctic animal

Caribou are an essential part of their ecosystems. As grazing animals, they eat and therefore affect plants and lichen and they are an important food source for predators such as bears and wolves. There are seven subspecies of caribou, commonly known as reindeer in Europe. Three are found in North America.

Barren-ground Caribou mostly live in northern Canada and northern Alaska, migrating long distances across the arctic. This is the dominant species in Alaska.

Woodland Caribou live a little further south, in the boreal regions of Canada and Alaska.

Peary Caribou are found in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Caribou habitat is threatened in Alaska’s arctic circle

Alaska boasts more than 30 caribou herds, four of which migrate hundreds to thousands of miles over the north slope of Alaska which includes the Western Arctic Reserve, the Prudhoe Bay oil field and the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The north slope is partially protected. 

Thanks to the Biden administration, five designated special areas in the Western Arctic, a total of 13 million acres, are protected from new oil and gas development. But other areas are not protected, oil drilling sites are under construction and with them come roads, airstrips and well pads. 

Prudhoe Bay, directly to the east of the Reserve, is the largest oil field in North America with more than 800 wells.

To the east of Prudhoe Bay lies the pristine coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, once sought by oil companies and more recently the site of a failed lease sale. Unfortunately, the specter of future drilling looms over the Refuge unless Congress takes action to permanently protect the area.

Caribou avoid crossing roads, which are an essential part of industrial activity. Roads are required for moving heavy equipment and getting workers to and from site. The Willow project alone is expected to generate 3.1 million vehicle trips over 30 years. Evenly distributed, that’s more than 100,000 trips per year and more than 280 per day. Since Caribou may avoid crossing roads with more than 5 vehicles per hour, that kind of volume is a big problem. Even if those trips aren’t equally distributed, it’s nearly certain that there will be days with more than 5 vehicles per hour.

If Caribou won’t cross roads, it shrinks the number of acres they can forage on which can lead to overgrazing and less access to important food sources. It also shrinks their breeding ground area.

Caribou habitat is threatened in the boreal forest

Covering nearly every province in Canada and extending into Alaska, the boreal forest is 1.5 billion acres, only slightly smaller than the combined lower 48 states of the United States (1.9 billion acres).

Woodland caribou living in the boreal forest do not migrate like their arctic tundra counterparts. They stay in the forest and also eat lichens and plants, avoiding cleared areas where they are more easily found by predators. They are threatened by logging, drilling and road-building which fragment their forest habitats and create cleared areas. Logging in the boreal has degraded the boreal forest, putting the woodland caribou herds at risk.

Customers in the United States unknowingly contribute to the degradation of the North America boreal forest by buying extra soft toilet paper and paper towels as well as wood products from stores like The Home Depot.