Canada's population of 184,000 woodland caribou will be savagely reduced if nothing is done to prevent the steady destruction of their northern habitats, according to a report released this week.
OTTAWA — Canada's population of 184,000 woodland caribou will be savagely reduced if nothing is done to prevent the steady destruction of their northern habitats, according to a report released this week.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said the caribou had lost half their historic range over the past 100 years, in part because of incursions into northern forests by the energy and logging industries.
"If steps are not taken now to protect many of the large intact regions where woodland caribou still roam, the species could disappear from much of its range this century," it said.
Woodland caribou are only found in the boreal forests of Canada, Russia, and the U.S. state of Alaska.
"Human development leads to a cascading series of impacts that seem to inevitably lead to the disappearance of woodland caribou from such areas," said the report.
The society said that if industrial development continued, the caribou could become extinct in the western province of Alberta in 37 years and in the central province of Ontario within 100 years.
Source: Reuters
