Wildlife in the Columbia Basin

Wildlife Subjects

Ungulates (Deer Family)

Taxonomy of Ungulates

Ungulates are hoofed animals of two orders, Perissodactyla, or odd-toed hoofed animals such as horses, and Artiodactyla, or even-toed ("cloven") hoofed animals like deer, bison and swine. The Perissodactyla have been extinct in North America since the late Pleistocene (see Earliest Beginnings), and there are no native members of the bison and swine families in the Columbia Basin (bison have been extinct in the Columbia Basin since at least the early Holocene, but the K'tunax'a hunted them across the Rocky Mountain passes on the prairies). The order of wild cloven-hoofed ungulates are represented today in the Columbia Basin by the families Antilocapridae, or goat-antelopes (mountain goats), Bovidae, including mountain sheep (bighorn sheep) and Cervidae, the deer family (elk, deer, moose, caribou).

Ecosystem Diversity = Ungulate Diversity

Another way of categorizing the ungulates, aside from their taxonomic relationships, is by ecosystem. All use a variety of ecosystems, but most require habitat that is at least partially represented by a particular ecosystem. In this way of looking at them, mountain goats and caribou require both high elevation meadows for summer pasture and mature ("old growth") timber for winter forage and protection, sheep require grassland, and elk, deer and moose require a mix of forest types.

These habitat types are also roughly divided in the East and West Kootenay: in the east, more grassland and grassy-understory forest types harbour higher populations of grazers like bighorn sheep and elk, while denser forest types of the west side of the Basin favour caribou and mountain goats.

Mountain Goats

Besides alpine or sub-alpine meadows, mountain goats also require a specific habitat component: cliffs. They need cliffs for escape cover, that is, to escape their less agile predators. In winter, mountain goats tend to hole up in thick patches of timber on steep, south-facing slopes. Thick timber limits the snow reaching the ground and creates variety in snow depth and hardness. On south-facing slopes, even a weak winter sun helps free the browse, both by melting it directly, and by modifying its structure to that it sloughs or avalanches readily. Avalanche paths beside tall timber are therefore good places to see them, particularly in late winter/early spring, often at quite low elevation. In summer, they like little, grassy basins with plenty of escape cover near tree line. McCrory (1979) estimated 1 goat per 4.5 square kilometres in Glacier and Revelstoke National Parks, and McCrory et al. (1991) used this density to estimate that perhaps 200 animals occupy the Goat Range Provincial Park in the Lardeau Range.

Mountain Goat Conservation Issues

Mountain goats, being white, are easy to find and, because they feel secure in their cliff side retreats, are relatively easy to hunt with high-power rifles, except for the climbing. Therefore, they can be hunted out of an area (locally extirpated). The first line of conservation defense is therefore a conservative regime of hunting regulations, backed up by good knowledge of populations and distribution. Although goats can cross forested areas without either meadows or escape cover to find new habitat, they do so infrequently. Therefore, repopulating vacant habitat (empty, for example, because of excessive hunting) is a reliable conservation technique.

Timber harvest, when it encroaches into the (usually high-elevation) steep, south-facing old-growth forest that goats need for winter cover, can threaten their populations. The solution for this threat is good knowledge of distribution and habitat suitability, combined with rigorous application of forest practices regulations which are sensitive to wildlife issues.

A threat recently recognized is disturbance of mountain goats by recreational snowmobilers, and by helicopters providing support for heli-skiing and heli-hiking. This is currently an area of active research.

The Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, with several partner organizations, are sponsoring several ungulate monitoring projects in the Basin, including one on mountain goats in the East Kootenay. There, aerial surveys in 1998 suggested that populations were down. Officials and naturalist groups will attempt to confirm whether this is the case and determine the cause.

More Information:

K.G. Poole and G. Mowat of Timberland Consultants Ltd. have recently completed a detailed study of mountain goat behaviour and habitat in relation to forestry in Tree Farm License (TFL) 3, Central Selkirk Mountains. It is available at the website of the Kootenay Regional Office of BC Environment. 

Bighorn Sheep

Two subspecies of bighorn sheep occur in the Columbia Basin: Rocky Mountain bighorns are the most widely distributed (see map, below), with California bighorns occurring in the Boundary Forest District in the southwest corner of the Basin (not shown on the map). Both are blue-listed in British Columbia (see Endangered Species - Mammals). In contrast to mountain goats, bighorn sheep like more rounded mountains with plenty of grassland, or at least a high density of grassy meadows or open timber habitats with plenty of grassy understorey. They seek high elevation (usually alpine tundra or sub-alpine meadows) grassy habitats in summer and low elevation grassland or grassy forest types (Interior Douglas-fir, Bunchgrass or Ponderosa Pine) in winter. Since they are not mobile in deep snow, they are absent in the "wet zone" forest types (Interior Cedar-Hemlock) of the Selkirk, Monashees and western Purcells. Since grasslands occur mainly in the East Kootenay, that is where we find bighorn sheep - there are none in the West Kootenay, except for locally in southern portions where alpine grassland and steep, south-facing slopes provide sufficient grassy habitat. Like goats, sheep need precipitous escape habitat close by.

Conservation Issues

Because sheep like the same winter habitat as cows, there has historically been a tension between the agricultural and wildlife communities. As well, wild sheep are highly susceptible to certain diseases, such as lungworm, which can be brought in by domestic sheep. This has been the cause of serious, historic bighorn sheep die-offs in the East Kootenay. On the other hand, good sheep habitat is good cow habitat, and these two communities are often allies on issues of forest management involving timber-grassland trade-offs - such as, for example, vigorous fire suppression that allows forest encroachment into grassland and in-filling of forest trees in grassy clearings in the IDF and PP biogeoclimatic zones.

The Columbia Basin Trust and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, with several partner organizations, are sponsoring several projects in the Basin to improve bighorn sheep winter range. These include range treatments such as burning, slashing and logging to restore and maintain native grassland communities in the Tobacco Plains (with the K'tunax'a/Kinbasket First Nations) the Power Plant Range Unit (with the East Kootenay Hunters Association), Bull Mountain, (with the Traditional Bowhunters of B.C. and B.C. Environment), and several areas near Cranbrook and Invermere (with several First Nations and wildlife groups). These projects will also benefit elk, livestock and other animals dependent on grassland ecosystems, as well as the plant communities themselves.

Caribou

Although all of the caribou in British Columbia are in the same subspecies, "woodland caribou," the B.C. Wildlife Branch manages them on the basis of ecotypes which distinguishes those in the north that migrate long distances between summer and winter ranges and eat terrestrial (ground) lichens in winter, from those more southerly populations - including all of those in the Columbia Basin - that migrate only altitudinally and eat arboreal ("tree") lichens in winter. The latter are referred to as "mountain caribou."

Like moose, caribou also do well in deep snow country but use a different evolutionary strategy. Although their movements are impaired in soft snow more than 80 cm deep, as winter lengthens and the snow hardens, instead of wading through the snow, they walk on top of it. Caribou are light animals with huge feet. Their widely-splayed hooves give a very low surface loading (measured in kg of body weight per square cm of foot area), in essence, natural snowshoes. They need abundant arboreal lichens - their main winter food - which only reach adequate levels of abundance in old-growth forest. Since arboreal lichens grow best in cool (not cold), moist environments, the centre of caribou abundance is in the Selkirk Mountains, with lesser populations in the Purcells and Monashees, and a few in the Rocky Mountains. The deep snow typical of their winter habitat actually helps them, since it raises the level on the tree at which they can browse these lichens. The Southern Selkirk caribou are an international wildlife resource, migrating into Idaho and back.

Because they have little defense against predators like bears, wolves, wolverines and human hunters, caribou have seasonal behaviours designed to avoid exposure to these predators. After a brief attendance in early winter at low elevation, as soon as the snow becomes dense enough to support them, they move up high to winter in secluded, old-growth timber, and their calving areas tend to be in cool, north-facing basins at high elevation. Spring often finds them again at low elevation, looking for early green-up, giving rise to an unusual "double migration" first described by the famous caribou biologist of the central interior, R. Yorke Edwards. Unfortunately, these strategies are less successful when predator populations are high, for example, when predator conservation efforts (e.g., hunting controls) or high alternate prey populations encourage high predator populations. Their predator-avoidance strategy is also less successful when human hunters use mechanized access to the high country (e.g., snowmobiles and logging/mining roads). Since deer, elk and moose populations respond favourably to opening up of the forest by agriculture, logging and forest fires - inevitable accompaniments to human settlement - caribou often decline in settled areas, unless special conservation efforts are made.

Detail on Caribou Habitat Use in the Columbia Basin

Caribou throughout British Columbia underwent a dramatic decline after 1970 and with better management have risen somewhat, but are still far below the management objective (see review by Harding, 1994). Harding (1975) first questioned whether mountain caribou should be classified as an endangered subspecies in B.C., and they were subsequently blue-listed (Harper et al., 1994) which means they could become threatened or endangered if new threats to their habitat or populations appear (see Endangered Species - Mammals).

Caribou have been studied south (Freddy, 1974; Servheen and Lyon, 1989 and others) and north (Antifeau, 1987; Hamer, 1994; Simpson et al., 1985; Simpson and Woods, 1987; Simpson et al., 1987; Simpson and McLellan, 1990; Stevenson and Hatler, 1985; and others) of the region. Some recent work in the Lardeau Range of the Selkirks (Herbison, 1991; Woods, unpubl. data) remains unpublished.

A radio-tagging/tracking study by Nanuq Consulting Ltd. for Pope & Talbon Ltd., Slocan Forest Products and B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks (see More Information, below) found about 200 caribou from Hamling Lakes (east of Nakusp) to Trout Lake in the Central Selkirks. More scattered populations and isolated bands occur elsewhere in the Central and Southern Selkirks, Purcells and Rockies. The densest populations, however, are north of Revelstoke in the Columbia River Valley and adjacent Monashee and Northern Selkirk Mountains. They are commonly seen at low elevation in the more remote valleys at green-up in early spring and (rarely) as low as lakeside in early winter; otherwise they remain at high elevation.

In early winter, caribou use mature forests containing western hemlock with a high proportion of open-canopy, or adjacent to open stands (Servheen and Lyon, 1989). In late winter they migrate to high elevation (>1800 m) forests with open stands with low basal area, moderate canopies and high lichen densities. In spring they use openings and cutover sites adjacent to mature stands. At calving time the pregnant females move again to high elevation forests with low tree density, low basal area, open canopies and high lichen densities, interspersed with rock and talus areas. Typical calving sites are at 1500 to 1800 meters elevation, steep, with a northern aspect, clearly a predator-avoidance strategy (G. Woods pers. comm.). Summer habitat is high elevation forest with high proportion of understorey, moderate basal area and high canopy closure; the units included both partial cuts and old growth. In winter, caribou move to low elevation, mature forests until snow accumulations become too deep and soft to forage, when they move to high elevation where wind and solar radiation result in a supporting snow pack.

Caribou Conservation Issues

Mountain Caribou are blue-listed in British Columbia (officially designated as "vulnerable"), meaning that special forest practice regulations apply. They are also listed as "vulnerable" by COSEWIC (see the Endangered Species Front Page for information on conservation status classification). Hence, they could theoretically become subject to federal regulation as a trans-boundary migratory species.

Because of their need for old-growth timber and their susceptibility to hunting and predation, caribou need special management to survive increasing human populations. Conflicts between caribou and timber harvest are particularly difficult in the current situation throughout the Basin of declining timber supplies. In many parts of the Basin, the only accessible, mature timber left is either current or potential caribou habitat. Pending results of intensive studies currently underway, it seems that this may be one of those difficult societal choices: we may have caribou or high levels of timber harvest, but not both.

Beyond the old-growth forest habitat issue, hunting is now generally controlled, but access is not. Even non-hunting recreationists can have a serious impact on caribou populations. Heli-sking, snow-cat skiing and snowmobiling are known winter disturbance factors, and the growth of heli-hiking raises the spectre of impacts of disturbance to caribou on their calving areas.

More Information:

Caribou have been the subject of intensive research in the Columbia Basin for more that a decade as wildlife managers attempt to find solutions to the chronic caribou-forestry conflict. Nanuq Consulting Ltd. is currently (April, 1999) studying caribou in the Central Selkirk Mountains for Pope & Talbot Ltd., Slocan Forest Products and B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. Preliminary results are available on the website of the Kootenay Regional Office of BC Environment.   A similar study is in progress in the Purcell Mountains. Another study, sponsored by Forest Renewal British Columbia (FRBC), Canada Parks Service, B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Canadian Parks Service and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program (CBFWCP), is examining similar issues in the Northern Selkirk Mountains. CBFWCP is also sponsoring caribou research and monitoring in Robson Valley.

Elk

Elk are more grazers (grass eaters) than browsers (brush eaters) and hence are more abundant in the East Kootenay than the West Kootenay (see map, below). They have been expanding their range in the West Kootenay, appearing recently, for example, on the west side of the Columbia River near Revelstoke. They like a mix of forest types (openings with good browse or grass for forage and thicker forest for escape cover and thermal cover in winter) and can tolerate moderate snow loads (up to about 75 cm deep). In summer they are often found high up in grassy sub-alpine basins. Because of their predilection for forest openings and meadows, which normally increase with fires and logging that accompany settlement, elk prosper in settled areas, so long as hunting limits are conservative.

Elk Conservation Issues

As with bighorn sheep, there has been a tension between wildlife and agricultural communities over elk, but it takes a somewhat different tack. Elk can gather in huge winter herds and devastate a rancher's cut and stacked hay supply and deplete winter pasture needed for livestock. On the other hand, in severe winters, ranchers and wildlife groups in the East Kootenay have cooperated to help elk herds survive by supplemental feeding.

More Information:

A 1998 habitat inventory of the Grohman/Baldface Creek area by K. Hurlburt, G. Mowat and D. Stanley of Timberland Consultants Ltd. for Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. illustrates the kind of habitat analysis for elk (and other wildlife) that is needed to integrate wildlife and forest management. It is available on the the website of the Kootenay Regional Office of BC Environment.

Deer

In the Columbia Basin we have both whitetail and mule deer. Like elk, deer are forest animals whose habitat includes a variety of forest structures (openings, canopy of different heights) and ages. While they profit from moderate levels of clearing (fires, logging, farms), they also require dense forest for predator escape cover and (in winter) thermal cover. While they tolerate far colder winters than the Columbia Basin has to offer, deer do not do well in heavy snow (more than about 50 cm deep). Their populations typically build up during periods of mild winters, and crash steeply when deep or crusted snow persists throughout winter and into spring. Whitetail deer, especially, are well adapted to human settlement and respond well to land clearing for agriculture, but less well to occasional severe winters. Mule deer, on the other hand, make more use of the high country, and may be able to tolerate somewhat worse winter conditions.

When their populations are high, deer can support high predator populations, especially cougar, in the Columbia Basin. After severe winters that deplete deer populations, however, the large numbers of predators must look for alternate prey. On these occasions, people often notice cougars around farms and towns, where domestic pets and livestock are tempting targets.

Deer Conservation Issues

Given their adaptability to land disturbances of various kinds, populations of deer are not threatened across the Basin, except by winter conditions and their natural predators. Current research is aimed at determining the precise forest age and structural attributes, in combination with other habitat elements, which can provide for healthy deer populations with intensive forestry.

The Columbia Basin Trust and the Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, with several partner organizations.., are sponsoring several ungulate monitoring projects in the Basin, including one on white-tailed deer. A Ph.D. student from UBC is analyzing 20 years of white-tailed deer spotlight and pellet group count data from the West Kootenay's Pend d'Oreille Valley to determine populations trends in relation to habitat trends. As well, these agencies and numerous partners are sponsoring projects to plant seedlings of Ceanothus species ("deer brush," a preferred winter food of deer and other ungulates - and a pretty nice plant for people, too, with its spicy scent and blue spirea-like flower sprays) and to improve winter range for the two species of deer and other ungulates in the Crawford Creek/Arrowhead area.

More Information:

1998 habitat inventory of the Grohman/Baldface Creek area by K. Hurlburt, G. Mowat and D. Stanley of Timberland Consultants Ltd. for Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. illusA trates the kind of habitat analysis for deer (and other wildlife) that is needed to integrate wildlife and forest management. It is available on the website of the Kootenay Regional Office of BC Environment.

Moose

Because moose, with their long legs, do well deep snow country (their movements are impaired at depths above about 95 cm) and marshy habitats, they are more common in the northern and "deep forest" parts of the Basin. However, like deer and elk, moose are "successional species," finding forage in recently burned areas, and in early forest successional stages until the forest develops a think second growth cover, limiting the brush and forbes (broad-leaved, herbaceous, or non-woody, plants). They have expanded their numbers in the southern, settled parts of the province during this century, probably profiting from the extensive fires and logging that accompanied early settlement, and from logging at present. For example, they have only come in to the east side of upper Arrow Lake in the last couple of decades, from population centres in the Lardeau area.

Moose Conservation Issues

With adequate hunting limits, good habitat and currently low predator (mainly wolf) populations, moose populations are not seriously threatened throughout the Basin. Access to hunters through proliferation of logging roads requires management attention. If wolf populations increase, however, management intervention may become necessary.

References

Antifeau, T.D. 1987. The significance of snow and arboreal lichen in the winter ecology of mountain caribou (Ranger tarandus caribou) in the north Thompson watershed of British Columbia. M.Sc. Thesis, Univ. British Columbia, Vancouver. 142 pp.

Apps, C.D. and Kinley, T.A. 1997. Development of a preliminary habitat assessment and planning tool for mountain caribou in southeast British Columbia. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada. Read abstract
Blower, D. (Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks), 1997. Notes on ungulate adaptation to winter conditions. In L. Harding and E. McCullum (1997), Ecosystem Response to Climate Change in British Columbia and Yukon: Threats and Opportunities for Biodiversity. Chapter 9, Responding to Global Climate Change in British Columbia and Yukon. Environment Canada.

D'Eon, R. and Bialkowski, C. 1997. Slocan Forest Products Tree Farm License #3 deer and elk winter range and inventory Project: 1996/97 Annual Report. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.
D'eon, R., Lindgren, P., Higgins, N. and Thompson, S. 1998. Habitat mapping pilot project: Hoder Creek Drainage, TFL #3. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.
D'Eon, R., Lindgren, P., Merrimen, T., Lutz, D. and Bialkowski, C. 1998. Slocan Forest Products Tree Farm License #3 Deer and Elk Winter Range Inventory:1998 Annual Report. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.

Hamer, J.D.W., 1974. Distribution, abundance and management of the grizzly bear and mountain caribou in the Mountain Creek watershed of Glacier National Park, British Columbia. M.Sc. Thesis, Univ. of Calgary.

Halko, R. and Hebert, K. 1997. Elk Inventory - East Kootenay Trench. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.

Hamilton, D. and Herbison, B. 1998. Central Selkirk Caribou Project Annual Report. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada. Hamilton, D. 1999. Central Selkirk Caribou Project Annual Report- April 1998 to March 1999. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.

Hurlburt, K., Mowat, G. and Stanley, D. 1998. Grohman/Baldface Creek Wildlife Habitat Inventory.

Hurlburt, K., Mowat, G., and Stanley, D. 1998. Sheppard Creek wildlife habitat inventory. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.

Hurlburt, K., Mowat, G., and Stanley, D. 1998. Woodlot 1458 wildlife habitat inventory. Ministry of Environment/FRBC report, BC, Canada.

Kinley, T.A. 1996. 7th North American Caribou Conference Summary: Information Gathered at the Conference Applicable to the Purcell Caribou Project. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada. 

Kinley, T. A. 1997. Purcell Caribou Project: 1996-1997 Year-End Summary Report. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada.

Kinley, T.A. 1997. Purcell caribou project rationale and methods: Landscape-level and fine-filter stand-level mountain caribou habitat suitability models. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada.

Kinley, T. A. 1998. Purcell Caribou Project: 1997-1998 Year-End Summary Report. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada.

Kinley, T. A. 1999. Purcell Caribou Project: 1998-99 Year-End Summary Report. Forest Renewal British Columbia/Ministry of Environment/East Kootenay Environmental Society report, BC, Canada.
McLellan, B.N. and Flaa, J. 1997. Inventory of mountain caribou and their habitat along Kinbasket reservoir, British Columbia. Ministry of Environment/FRBC/Ministry of Forests report, BC, Canada.

Harding, L. 1975. Our mountain caribou...an endangered species? B.C. Outdoors 31(2): 24-31.

Harding, L., 1994. Overview of Ecosystem Diversity in British Columbia. In L.E. Harding and E. McCullum (ed.s), Biodiversity in British Columbia: our changing environment. Environment Canada.

Herbison, B., 1991. Mountain caribou in the Slocan-Lardeau-Duncan and the proposed White Grizzly Wilderness Area. Unpubl. report to Ministry of Environment, Nelson. 5 pp. plus appendices.

McCrory, W., 1979. An inventory of the mountain goats of Glacier and Mt. Revelstoke National Parks. Report to Parks Canada. 128 pp.

Simpson, K., G.P. Woods and K.B. Hebert, 1985. Critical habitats of caribou in the mountains of southern B.C. IN T.C. Meredith and A.M. Martell, eds. Proc. 2nd North American Caribou Workshop. McGill Subarctic Research Paper No. 40:177-191.
Simpson K. and G.P. Woods, 1987. Movements and habitats of caribou in the mountains of southern British Columbia. Wildlife Bulletin No. B-57, Victoria. 36 pp.

Simpson, K. 1987. Impacts of a hydro-electric reservoir on populations of caribou and grizzly bear in southern B.C. Wildlife Working Report No. WR-24, Ministry of Environment, Nelson, B.C. 40 pp.

Simpson, K. and B.N. McLellan, 1990. Wildlife habitat inventory and management planning in Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks. Report prepared for Canadian Parks Service, Revelstoke.

Stevenson, S.K. and D.F.Hatler, 1985. Woodland caribou and their habitats in southern and central British Columbia. Vol 1. Land Management Report No. 23, Ministry of Forests, Victoria.

Wildlife Subjects