ARCTIC The Buffalo of the North: Caribou (Rangijèr tarandus) and Human Developments

• Main Authors: A. T. Bergerudi, R. D. Jakimchukz, D. R. Carruthers
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctique Central; Arctique*; Newfoundland; Terre-Neuve
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.554.9354; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-1-7.pdf

ABSTRACT. The demography, movement, and behaviour patterns of eight caribou populations (Kaminuriak, Nelchina, Central Arctic, Fortymile, Porcupine, British Columbia, Newfoundland, and Sndhetta) exposed to industrial ctivities or transportation corridors are reviewed. Eehaviour pat-terns of caribou encountering transportation corridors are explainable in terms of adaptive responses to natural environmental features. There is no evidence that disturbance activities or habitat alteration have affected productivity. Transportation corridors have adversely affected caribou numbers by facilitating access by hunters. There are no examples where physical features of corridors or associated disturbances have affected numbers or productivity. Caribou apparently have a high degree of resilience to human disturbance, and seasonal movement patterns and extent of range oc-cupancy appear to be a function of population size rather than of extrinsic disturbance. The carrying capacity of the habitat is based on the space caribou need to interact successfully with their natural predators. Caribou must not be prevented from crossing transportation corridors by the con-struction of physical barriers, by firing lines created by hunting activity along a corridor, or by intense harassment- a loss in usable space will ultimately result in reduced abundance. Key words: caribou (Rangifer farandus), disturbance, wolves, predation, overharvest, access RÉSUMÉ. L’article examine les donntes ayant trait à la dtmographie, aux dtplacements et au comportement de huit populations de caribous (Kaminuriak, Nelchina, Arctique central, Fortymile, Porcupine, Colombie-Britannique, Terre-Neuve et Sndhetta) e x p o s h aux activitts in-dustrielles et aux corridors de transport. Le comportement des caribous ayant contact avec les corridors de transport peut &re expliqu6 comme rhc-tion d’adaptation aux traits naturels du milieu. Les corridors de transport ont affect6 de façon dtfavorable le nombre de caribous en facilitant I’accbs