Southern mountain caribou are a type of caribou found in mature forests of western Canada, where they subsist on lichen as a winter food.Habitat loss — primarily driven by logging — has transformed their mature forest habitat, upsetting the predator-prey balance and leading to caribou declines.In the past 20 years, 15 of 40 southern mountain caribou herds in British Columbia and Alberta have winked out, including a transboundary herd that once ranged into the U.S. states of Idaho and Washington.In June, the Syilx Okanagan Nation asked the Canadian government to issue an emergency order to protect caribou, with a spokesperson calling provincial efforts insufficient to stop logging of caribou habitat within Syilx Okanagan traditional territory; the Xatśūll First Nation joined the petition in July.
“Under our Syilx Okanagan law, everything is sacred to us. We believe that Mother Earth is alive, all of kʷuləncutn, the creator’s creation, that it’s all alive,” Chief Dan Wilson of the Okanagan Indian Band, a Syilx Okanagan Nation, told Mongabay in a phone call.
“That’s why the caribou are so important to us … they reflect on the job we’re doing for preserving kʷuləncutn as a creation for the next generation.”
