Collaring caribou is wet work

For the twelve people setting out at dawn on brisk spring mornings 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, chest waders were inadequate in their search for the elusive forest-dwelling woodland caribou. These shy creatures, also called the ghosts of the forests, can slip away from the most skilled trackers with ease, and swim to another island or the main land as easily as they glide through the forests. The team, including species at risk (SAR) biologist Catherine Lipsett-Moore and SAR intern Lisa Eddy needed to stay in a straight line, through swamp, streams, bush and muskeg and often ended up swimming in their efforts to find and herd a caribou into Ogoki-mojikit Lake to try to capture one.

The object of the five-day trip was to put a radio collar on at least one caribou cow to follow her movements especially during calving next spring. Satellites track the movements of any animals that are collared, and provide much needed information about summer and winter habitat, and about where animals go at certain times during their breeding cycles.

This particular team, was fortunate being sponsored by Mattice Lake Outfitters, Armstrong Outpost Outfittlers and Ogoki Frontier Outfitters. Wilderness North Outfitters provided accommodations and food. As a result they didn't have to camp in tents, but had cabins, real beds, and did not have to cook over campfires. "Sheer luxury," was how Catherine put it.

The bed and breakfast portion of the expedition may have seemed luxurious, but hard work was necessary to encourage a caribou into the water so that team members in waiting nearby in a zodiac could motor up to it, and install the collar on the swimming animal. This is considered to be a low-cost, humane method of collaring the animals, but it demands a great deal of leg-work as the 12-person team marches through the bush. Each has his or her own compass line and walks in a sort of straight line within shouting distance but not necessarily sight of their colleagues on each side of them.

The group saw 13 caribou. However the weather seemed to fight them at every turn. Often it was too windy and the water too rough for the caribou to want to risk a swim. The animals, which are extremely fast runners, would slip past the team and avoid the water and the waiting zodiac team. One curious bull, unlike most caribou, kept sliding in and out of view…almost as if it was playing hide and seek. But a bull was not on the agenda for this adventure.

A typical day for the team would last about 12 or 13 hours. The two boats, one a spotter with one person in it and the other a capture boat with two people got onto the water at day break. The others were dropped onto an island or peninsula, avoiding deadheads and rocks, and trying not to spook anything alive on the island. Then they would determine their compass headings and start walking. They covered a lot of kilometres in a day, and while they were often on land, their feet were wet all day. Occasionally a line would take them through deep water. The most important thing was to keep the radio and compass dry…not worrying about swimming.

When a caribou was spotted it became really exciting said Lisa - all the radios started sqawking, the people in the boats searching with binoculars, trying to keep track of what was happening. It was very easy for a caribou to swim from an island to the mainland and disappear into deep bush before the zodiac could approach.

While collaring a caribou was the main purpose of the expedition, there were other interesting biological items that caught the teams' attention. They saw bears, kept an eye open for rare plants and birds, and more important got a better idea of the type of habitat that caribou require. Traversing islands, peninsulas, beaches and deep bush allowed them to acquire first hand knowledge of caribou preferences. Evidence of caribou, including tracks, scats, and occasional sightings, were examined carefully throughout the five days. The satellite reports over the next two years will help biologists and other scientists learn more about caribou needs and preferences for shelter and what the relationship is between caribou and boating, since fishing, hunting and eco-tourism are popular recreation activities in the north.

Collaring caribou is not new in the Northwest region. It began with 30 plus collars in 1995 according to Rick Gollat an MNR biologist who has been working on forest-dwelling woodland caribou for several years. Monitoring caribou activity via a collar is an efficient method of tracking and obtaining data he says.

The outfitters are also participating in caribou research by putting up signs in their guest cabins asking their clients to report any sightings, as well as providing food and accommodation for the research team during the July expedition.

Forest-dwelling woodland caribou have been assigned threatened status by the national Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and a recovery plan must be put in place by the Ontario within two years. Catherine is a member of the recovery team developing the plan. She says that information gathered from the radio-collared animal is expected to assist with the plan. While it was a wet adventure, and only one of the 13 caribou they saw, fit the requirements of the program, the team is pleased that they accomplished their goal.

Species at risk - act today so they have tomorrow!