Canada

Northern Canada includes >150 wild caribou herds and 20 muskox populations. More than 2 millions caribou range across seven provinces and all three Canadian territories. The Canadian Species at Risk Act (SARA) recognizes three subspecies of caribou in Canada: Peary caribou, barren-ground, and woodland caribou and categorizes them in 12 Designatable Units to facilitate conservation and management (Figure 1). Indigenous people classify caribou into more specific groupings, distinct from the occidental scientific classification. Caribou inhabiting Northern and Arctic Canada consist of migratory woodland, barren-ground caribou and Peary caribou.

Four migratory woodland caribou herds range across Labrador, Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, while eighteen barren-ground caribou herds are found in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, and northern Saskatchewan. The four Peary caribou herds are located in the Arctic islands of Canada. While a few herds have recently been stable or increasing (e.g., Cape Churchill, Cape Bathurst, Porcupine, South Hampton Island, Tuk Peninsula and Western Queen Elizabeth), the majority has been subject to sharp declines during the last decades. More than 90,000 muskoxen inhabit the northern and arctic regions of Canada (Figure 2). Native populations of muskox occur on the Arctic islands, in the Northwest Territories and in Nunavut. Small populations have been introduced in the Yukon and in Quebec. While some populations are declining (e.g., Thelon, Banks and Victoria islands), almost all others have been recently stable or increasing, several expanding their range.

Female caribou with a calf. Photo by Joelle Taillon.

Figure 1. Caribou distribution in Canada and associated Designatable Units (DU). Adapted from “Designatable Units for Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) in Canada” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, 2011.

Figure 2*. Global overview of the current distribution of muskox populations and management units. The provided boundaries are guidelines, often reflecting administrative or political regions. They are not a precise distribution/extent for a specific population, e.g., since muskoxen can and do travel across sea-ice, even the islands are not strict boundaries.

Monitoring efforts of caribou herds across Canada vary. Some herds are closely tracked using satellite collars, whereas others are not consistently surveyed. Efforts encompass population estimates through aerial surveys, classification of group composition, and monitoring of physical condition, health, movements, survival, reproduction, and recruitment. Muskox monitoring mostly focuses on abundance and group composition, using aerial distance-sampling methods and line or strip transects. Satellite collars have also been fitted to individuals in a few populations, enabling closer tracking. Monitoring efforts of muskox also include health assessments, identifying emerging pathogens threatening some populations.

Caribou equipped with a GPS collar. Photo by Mattis Pelletier.

Muskox. Photo by Alexandre Paiement

Research on Arctic ungulates in Canada primarily focuses on population trends, habitat use, behavioral ecology of movements, disease dynamics, genomics, and the effects of natural and human disturbances. Rising temperatures in northern regions increase the frequency of extreme weather events, such as above-average snow depths, ice-crust formation and rain-on-snow occurrences. These factors can reduce forage availability and increase the energetic cost of foraging, potentially leading to higher mortality and decreased calf recruitment. Warming conditions can also lead to increases in predation pressure, and facilitate the spread of invasive species and emerging diseases. Together with increasing human development in the north, these phenomena present growing threats to Arctic ungulates.

The vast and remote ranges of caribou and muskox, often spanning multiple jurisdictions and rarely located near human settlements or airports, make monitoring and research efforts both costly and logistically complex. Despite these challenges, understanding the impacts of these ongoing changes through research is crucial to develop sustainable management strategies that mitigate the impacts of environmental and anthropogenic changes to support long-term persistence of Arctic ungulate populations in Canada.

Canadian entities active in arctic ungulates research, monitoring and management:

Environment and Climate Change Canada, https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change.html

Canadian Wildlife Service, https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/wildlife-plants-species.html

British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/ministries/water-land-and-resource-stewardship

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Environment and Climate Change, https://www.gov.nl.ca/ecc/

Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec, https://www.environnement.gouv.qc.ca/index_en.asp

Government of Nunavut, Nunavut Wildlife Service, Department of Sustainable Development, https://www.gov.nu.ca/en/environment-and-wildlife

Government of Northwest Territories, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, https://www.gov.nt.ca/en/department/environment-and-natural-resources

Government of Yukon, Department of the Environment, https://yukon.ca/en/department-environment

University of British Columbia, Department of Geography, https://geog.ubc.ca/

University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, https://vet.ucalgary.ca/

University of Manitoba, Natural Resource Institute, https://umanitoba.ca/environment-earth-resources/natural-resources-institute

University of Northern British Columbia, Forest Ecology and Management Department, https://www.unbc.ca/forest-ecology-management

University of Saskatchewan, https://www.usask.ca/

Trent University, https://www.trentu.ca/

Wilfrid Laurier University, https://www.wlu.ca/

Université Laval, Caribou Ungava, https://www.caribou-ungava.ca/

Université Laval, Caribou Genomics, https://caribougenomics.org/

Université du Québec à Rimouski, https://www.uqar.ca/

Churchill Northern Studies Center, https://churchillscience.ca/caribou-of-northern-manitoba/

Beverly & Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board, https://arctic-caribou.com/

Porcupine Caribou Management Board, https://pcmb.ca/

Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board, https://grrb.nt.ca/

Inuvialuit Game Council, https://www.jointsecretariat.ca/inuvialuit-game-council

Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach, https://naskapi.ca/

Tlicho Government, https://www.tlicho.ca/

Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, https://www.vgfn.ca/

Wek'eezhii Renewable Resources Board, https://www.wrrb.ca/, https://northerncaribou.ca/

Wildlife Management Advisory Council (North Slope), https://wmacns.ca/

* Adapted from “Muskox status, recent variation, and uncertain future” by Cuyler C., J. Rowell, J. Adamczewski, M. Anderson, J. Blake, T. Bretten, V. Brodeur, M. Campbell, S.L. Checkley, H.D. Cluff, S.D. Côté, T. Davison, M. Dumond, B. Ford, A. Gruzdev, A. Gunn, P. Jones, S. Kutz, L.-M. Leclerc, C. Mallory, F. Mavrot, J.B. Mosbacher, I.M. Okhlopkov, P. Reynolds, N.M. Schmidt, T. Sipko, M. Suitor, M. Tomaselli, B. Ytrehus., 2020, AMBIO Special Issue, 49(3), 805-819.

Banner photo: Sophiane Béland

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse