To save caribou, Indigenous people confront difficult choices – National Geographic
April 7, 2022
A Canadian caribou herd is making a comeback—but the rescue plan is controversial.
In eastern British Columbia it was once impossible to count caribou.
“Our elders said that they used to be as thick as bugs on the landscape,” said Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nations, one of many Indigenous groups that relied upon caribou for survival. “They were always around.”
Today, caribou are so depleted that some herds can be tallied on two hands. In West Moberly’s rugged homeland, not far from the border with Alberta, their abundance slowly dwindled during the last century as more settlers moved west and their logging, mining, and dam projects broke up old-growth forests and reshaped the landscape. By the time Chief Willson was born, in 1966, the age of enormous herds was gone. By the time he was elected chief, in 2000, caribou in his region had been listed as federally threatened.
