Joint ENGO Letter to Alberta: 2023 Wildfire Season Significantly Impacted Caribou Habitat, and Highlighted Shortcomings in Caribou Range Plans

April 29, 2024

• •
• •
• •

• Caribou

CPAWS Northern Alberta, Alberta Wilderness Association and The Alberta Chapter of the Wildlife Society wrote to Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz to raise significant concerns regarding the impacts of the 2023 wildfire season on at-risk caribou recovery progress, and the significant gaps in sub regional planning it has highlighted.

• None of Alberta’s 12 caribou ranges meet the requirement of 65% undisturbed habitat laid out in the federal boreal caribou recovery strategy.
• 2023 wildfires burned 5.2% of preferred woodland caribou habitat across the province, including 12.7% of preferred habitat in the Bistcho range, and 13.7% of preferred habitat in the Caribou Mountains range.
• In an analysis of area burned in 2023 we found that more than 1% of caribou range was burned in 9 out of 12 Boreal Woodland caribou ranges.
• The two existing caribou range plans are not adaptive to the impacts of wildfire, which means that between human footprint and natural disturbances, we may not achieve the undisturbed habitat requirements that caribou need to survive.
• A review of the Bistcho Sub-Regional plan is urgently needed. Future plans must include specific provisions for catastrophic habitat loss due to wildfire within that trigger a change in other allowable access and habitat disturbances from forest harvest, oil and gas, and other industrial uses, that is not dependent on plan review.

Click here to read the letter.