How an Indigenous-led conservation effort saved a caribou herd – Canada’s National Observer

May 12th 2022

This story was originally published by Atlas Obscura and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Caribou, it turns out, can be fussy. “They’re picky about what they eat,” says Carmen Richter, a biologist and citizen of the Saulteau First Nation in British Columbia. “They definitely let us know what’s acceptable.”

For nine years, Richter has been a part of an intensive caribou recovery effort, a collaboration spearheaded by the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations, neighbouring communities that live across a lake from one another, a few miles north of Chetwynd, B.C.

Richter is in charge of gathering lichen for the caribou cows and calves that spend each spring in maternal pens, enclosures where they are kept safe from predators during the vulnerable weeks leading up to and after birth. Each year, members of the Saulteau deliver a semi-truck trailer full of lichen to the 30-acre pen to supplement the animals’ diets, and over the years they’ve learned about the animal’s predilections. “They love mushrooms,” Richter says. “Mushrooms are a big bonus for them.”

Read More: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/05/12/news/how-indigenous-led-conservation-rescued-caribou-herd