What happens to Jasper's animals when wildfire rips through their home?
Most large animals will have escaped but caribou don't have many safe places to go
Jasper National Park is beloved for its breathtaking mountain landscapes — and the special opportunity to see iconic animals such as elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, grizzly bears and, with luck, endangered woodland caribou.
But this week, as thousands of visitors and locals alike fled raging wildfires that ripped through the park and its town, some might wonder what's befalling the park's wild residents.
Conservationists say wildfires are part of the natural cycle in the region and most animals are adapted to handle them. But some species at risk — in particular, the park's threatened woodland caribou — are less resilient as their habitats and populations have been eroded by human activity.
Threat to caribou, breeding program
"I'm really fearful for what this fire means for them," said Tara Russell, program director at the northern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. The local chapter formed half a century ago to advocate for better conservation in Jasper National Park.
Only two caribou herds still hang on in the park — the Brazeau herd has fewer than 10 caribou, while the Tonquin herd has about 50 with only around 10 breeding females, according to Parks Canada.
Physically, the caribou are capable of escaping the fires, Russell said. Traditionally, they would have faced wildfires from time to time and would have had other habitat to go to.
"And now they don't really," she said.
Russell says industrial development, including forestry, mining, and oil and gas, has disturbed most of the caribou's habitat outside the park.
"There's really so little left of their habitat to maintain that resiliency to the occasional fire," she said. On top of that, she said, climate change has made wildfires both more frequent and extreme.
Russell noted that caribou populations have faced steep declines across Canada, with many living in remote areas to begin with. This makes Jasper's herds all the more special.
The Tonquin herd "live on a very popular hiking trail, and that many people have magical experiences with," she said, recalling her own sighting of eight bulls during a backpacking trip last summer.
"We could see them all bedded down in the moss having a rest. And about 10 minutes later, as we followed the trail, we heard them kind of pop out through the bushes and they all crossed right in front of us. So that was really special to me."
Parks Canada had been working on a captive breeding plan for Jasper's caribou to boost their numbers. It had been constructing a facility for that purpose, which was to open this fall.
Chris Johnson, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Northern British Columbia, visited the facility three weeks ago and watched workers building fences.
"One of the things I noticed immediately when I saw the path of the fire was that it was going to go right into, or past, that facility," he said.
Both he and Russell are hopeful that it survived. If not, Johnson said, "that's going to set back the captive breeding program for a number of years."
Bigger animals more likely to survive
Caribou and other animals in the region mostly have their babies early in the spring. By late July, their young are able to travel higher into the mountains and get away from the fire, Johnson says.
He thinks most larger species will be able to escape.
"They'll be displaced by the fire," he acknowledged. "They'll go to other places and, we hope, return to those burned landscapes when they, you know … change and grow back."
Among smaller creatures, birds are able to fly away but many other species — such as amphibians, reptiles and small mammals — may have perished, he said. "If you're something smaller than a squirrel, it's going to be hard to outrun that fire."
Dale Gienow, executive director of Wildnorth, Alberta's northern-most wildlife rescue, told CBC's Radio Active that slow-moving animals such as porcupines and fledgling birds likely won't make it out.
But he said his organization rarely sees animals that have direct injuries from wildfires such as burns or smoke inhalation. Instead, it tends to see an increase in animals hit by vehicles as they're fleeing, or which come into conflict with humans when they end up in urban or suburban areas.
He said there are also longer-term effects when animals lose the nesting and hibernating sites they've used for years and face competition or other difficulty in finding a new one in another area. "That animal might perish through the next winter."
Johnson said the impact of wildfires on wildlife depends on their size, intensity and frequency. That's something that's changing with climate change — Parks Canada expects the wildfire season to be 20 to 60 days longer in most of Jasper by 2040 than it was in 2011.
But Johnson noted that wildfires are a natural occurrence, and can benefit many local species in the longer term. Tender new plants and leaves regrow to feed animals such as elk and caribou, and berry bushes that provide food for bears will pop up in areas now opened up by fire.
"Generally wildfire can destroy habitats," Johnson said, "but also at the same time rejuvenate habitats."
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