In Canada’s Manitoba province, clearcut logging, roadbuilding and industrial hydropower development have devastated the old-growth boreal forest habitat of the woodland caribou, cutting the provincial population of this majestic species in half in the span of just a few decades. Now numbering roughly 2,000 animals, Manitoba’s last remaining woodland caribou survive hard winters by feeding on abundant lichens in our Heart of the Boreal Forest BioGem and other boreal woodlands.
According to scientists, a dwindling caribou population serves as an alert that the health of other forest wildlife is in jeopardy as well. But despite warnings from federal and provincial endangered species committees about the impacts of habitat loss on woodland caribou, the Manitoba government still refuses to list woodland caribou as threatened under its Endangered Species Act. Please take action now to ensure the protection of this sensitive boreal species in Manitoba.
