Virginia Thompson

The last Caribou Recovery Plan of 2007 was undertaken as most herds were declining, although 40 per cent of core habitat was already protected in our Revelstoke Shuswap Planning Unit. …There are three aspects to recovery actions for caribou: recreation i.e. snowmobiling, skiing and heli-cat skiing, predator/prey control, and habitat protection/restoration. The last is the most foundational without which the other two will not work. …However, in the absence of habitat protection, this culling of moose, wolves, white tailed deer and now cougar will have to continue indefinitely and will not succeed in the long term. A Section 80 Application was undertaken under the Federal Species at Risk Act by environmentalists requesting a stop order on logging in mountain caribou critical habitat, particularly old growth critical habitat which is essential for this endangered species. Neither caribou nor old growth forest can be brought back once they’re gone.