A Progressive Approach to Forestry In Mountain Caribou Country

Text and photographs by David Moskowitz At the northern end of the home range of the Southern Selkirks herd of Mountain caribou, a progressive experiment in community based forestry and watershed management has been underway for the past 25 years. I spent a morning out in the field with the forestry manager for the Harrop-Procter Community Forest, visiting a timber harvest. In the afternoon I visited their small scale mill where they process many of the logs they harvest, producing a variety of high value wood products.

Forestry manager Erik Leslie (left), reviews a map of the Community Forest’s tenure with two board members. The beautiful wood table in their office meeting room is built from wood from their mill.

Much of the low elevation forest managed by Harrow-Procter was burned over in the early 1900’s and is now dense second growth mixed conifer forest.

While Community Forests make up only a small portion of the timber harvest allotment on public lands in British Columbia, they represent a significant move towards connecting local communities to management of the forests that make up the watersheds and forests in which they live and put a mandate for social and environmental values centrally into the matrix of how logging operations are designed and implemented. The incorporation of a small mill into the business structure of the Harrop-Proctor Community Forest allows the company to create value added products from many of the trees they harvest and increase the number of local peoples employed. Mill manager Rami Rothkop noted that the Harrop-Procter runs about the same amount of wood through their mill in an entire year as some of the largest mills in the province do in a single shift, while both mills employ about 7 people for running the mill. He notes that while this might seem “inefficient” on one level, it also means that you need a lot less cut trees to create the same number of jobs in the local community. This also gives the business the opportunity to be more selective in what, where, and how they log in the watersheds that not only provide them with trees for the mill but also their drinking water and provide habitat for Mountain caribou and many other species of wildlife.

A self-loading logging truck is loaded with western red cedar logs bound for a local mill which specializes in cedar products. Logs are sorted in the field with various logs going to the Community Forest’s own mill or other mills in region depending on the species and quality of the logs.

A log being run through the small saw which is the center of the company’s mill. Each log can be processed to produce the highest value product possible based on the species, size and quality of the specific log.

The history of the creation of the Harrop-Procter Community Forest is an inspiring story about a community stepping up to take action for the ecological and economic health of their watershed and community. Along with economic vitality, the Community Forest is also working hard to manage their forests to deal with the challenges of climate change which are quickly changing the conditions literally in their backyard. A substantial part of the watersheds they permitted to log on is set aside as caribou habitat by the province. Other parts of the area have been set aside by the business itself for its value for protecting the integrity of their watershed.

Finished tongue and groove cedar ready for sale. Customers come right to the mill to select the product they want or can submit custom orders which the company can mill to the specifications set by the customer.

I will be returning to learn more about this inspiring project in the months to come. Stay tuned.

Mountain Caribou Herds: A Single Organism

Mountain Caribou Herds: A Single Organism

text by Kim Shelton

Recently, I was listening to a podcast by Richard Nelson, a cultural anthropologist who studies human relationships with the natural world. He was recording in the midst of a great caribou migration up in Alaska.  As he spoke I could hear the clicking of their hooves and their grunting. His description was so vivid that it felt like I was there in his shoes, being overwhelmed by the smells and the vibration of the earth.  He said at one point that observing the caribou made him think that each individual caribou is really just a single cell in a bigger organism.  According to Nelson, so much of their existence and identity is wrapped up in being a part of the herd that when one gets separated it's hardly even a caribou anymore.

Mountain Caribou don’t migrate vast distances like the Barren Ground Caribou do, but they are herd animals and they migrate through the elevations, up-and-down, twice a year. Listening to Nelson’s account, I recalled searching for the South Selkirk heard with Dave this summer, a group with only about thirteen individuals at the moment.  We were searching for them during the summer so we could get up into the mountains without the snow to impede us.  This is also the time of year that Mountain Caribou disperse to avoid predators, so they were extremely difficult to find.  As opposed to forming a cohesive unit like they would during the rut in the fall, these few animals were scattered across a patchwork quilt of clearcuts, highways, and intact subalpine forest. They were miles away from each other. Despite their being only thirteen caribou remaining, I wondered why they weren’t travelling together.  In a more stable population these Caribou would still be spread out, but would they be completely alone? To a caribou does thirteen even feel like a herd when the comparison is hundreds, even thousands?  How big must a herd be to have a gravitational pull on the individual to the whole?

Sunrise over the Selkirk mountains in the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Darkwoods Conservation Area.

Kim Shelton bushwhacking through the southern Selkirks during our attempts to find sign of members of the South Selkirk Caribou herd.

Dave and I were invited to explore the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s Darkwoods Conservation Area to search for signs of the South Selkirk herd. Several of the animals in this herd are fitted with GPS collars so wildlife managers can track their movements. Even knowing general locations where a caribou had been recently, in days of searching, we couldn't even find fresh sign of a caribou from the herd, let alone see an actual animal. I thought about how it might feel to be an animal whose entire identity is dependent on the existence of the herd, and to be roaming the land alone.  What is a caribou without it’s herd? To me, it meant they were un-findable, invisible, seemingly mythical. It's almost like they're already gone.

I wonder about the South Selkirk Herd's will to survive when they're living life so far from their evolutionary blueprint—in such small numbers at the very southern tip of the caribou universe.  How much fight is in them, how much resilience is left as a single cell, disconnected from a greater organism?

This spring we will be headed out on another expedition to Mountain Caribou country, this time further north where populations are larger. Stay posted for updates on how these herds travel together and disperse.

MCP Field Notes: Visiting the Kennedy Siding Herd

MCP Field Notes: Visiting the Kennedy Siding Herd

Text by Marcus Reynerson

In late November 2015, Dave and I embarked on a short and spontaneous trip up to central British Columbia to search for mountain caribou in their early winter habitat. Many miles on the road, numerous podcasts, sub-freezing temperatures, and Coconut Cream Pie defined the contours of our journey to photograph Rangifer tarandus. We traveled to the northern extent of mountain caribou range in the Rocky Mountain Trench so we could catch a glimpse of the Kennedy Siding herd – a group of just under 50 animals that reside south of Mackenzie, BC.

Two bull’s from the Kennedy Siding herd sparing.

A glimpse into fall field conditions for caribou and photographers alike. Photo by Marcus Reynerson.

In the heart of country dominated by the logging and pulp industry, Mackenzie was first settled in the mid 1960s after being established by British Columbia Forest Products. The town boasts itself as home to the “world’s largest tree crusher” – a massive mechanical beast, that proved to be inefficient and, by most accounts, inept in its bid to clear land when the massive Williston Reservoir was constructed adjacent to Mackenzie. While the piece of machinery itself – the Le Tourneau G175 – was, indeed, impressive at 175 tons, there was an air of awkward heaviness pervading an industry town existing specifically so people can pull up a forest like old carpet. A little online research led us to this meditative video of tree crushers doing what they do best (crushing trees). This is, perhaps, representative of the general headwind that the slim Kennedy Siding herd is facing as it tries to carve out an existence here.

Marcus Reynerson following the trail of several caribou through fresh snow.

Marcus Reynerson inspecting where a caribou dug through the shallow fall snow to access forage, in this case terrestrial lichens.

Several members of the Kennedy Siding herd in the thick pine forest characteristic of their late fall-early winter habitat.

We were fortunate to visit with Doug Heard, a wildlife biologist from the University of Northern British Columbia, who helped us find the local herd in a large pine flat near Mackenzie. Doug is currently spearheading an experimental feeding program for the Kennedy-Siding herd, to see if this might increase the fitness and survival rates of members of this herd. While the long-term hopes of Caribou survival depend on far greater and more complex conservation issues – industrial logging, oil and gas extraction, winter recreation by humans in caribou habitat, and climate change – shorter-term “stop-gap” tactics are under way to help these animals hang on in the meantime. Doug has had his hands in many of these efforts, including maternity penning, predator control, and feeding regimes. It was a great pleasure and privilege to spend a few days with these animals and observe them. I’m grateful for Doug’s hard work and heart he is bringing to his work with the Kennedy-Siding herd.

Biologist Doug Herd helping us get oriented for our field trip at his home office in Prince George, BC.

David Moskowitz braves a fall snow-storm to capture caribou photos. Photo by Marcus Reynerson.

At Work In the Woods

At Work in the Woods

Small Scale Forestry in Northern California

Photos and text by David Moskowitz and Matt Nelson

Cross the Golden Gate Bridge and drive north. 100 miles later you find yourself in the quiet old mill town of Annapolis, two hours and a world away from the international city spectacle that is San Francisco. Set back from the coast, away from California State Highway 1 and the tourist traffic which streams up and down it, Annapolis is a town that has about as much in common culturally with San Francisco as it does with Berlin—that is to say, not much. Hunting, fishing, mushroom picking, and pot gardening supplement the local economy and social hour conversations often return to the backwardness of Sacramento and Washington D.C. laws and regulations which seem to fit the tastes of an urban population more than the needs of rural people still trying to make a living off of the land.

Annapolis sits surrounded by steep sloped hills alternately cloaked with dense scrub, redwood, Douglas fir, and tanoak forests. Trees have been the heart of the town’s economy since its inception. The town’s first European-American settlers planted apple orchards, drying and shipping the fruit back to the eastern United States. Paired with the fruit trees was the tanoak bark industry. Annapolis is full of tanoak trees (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) which get their name from the high concentration of tannins in the bark. Tanoak bark was the mainstay of the leather tanning industry in the late 1800’s when Annapolis was established. Bark would be chopped off standing old growth trees and hauled out of the woods by horse drawn wagons. Amazingly, when some old time locals bought land that was mostly inland redwood, people laughed at them and said “there’s no tanoak on that land”.

The tanoak bark industry dwindled in the early 1900’s but in the middle of the twentieth century, Annapolis became a logging and mill town, growing with the boom in redwood logging which ultimately saw the destruction of all but a handful of old growth stands of these iconic trees found nowhere else in the world. With the liquidation of the old growth and increase in environmental regulations the local timber industry collapsed in the 1990’s. The lumber mill closed over a decade ago, leaving the town in a state of transition again, now away from forestry. Compared to its heyday, the town looks empty, comprised now mainly of people content to make a living doing odd jobs and eking out an existence in a backwater of our world’s globalized economy, along with a smattering of wealthy Californian’s from elsewhere looking for an escape from urban life.

Perhaps the most dangerous time for felling large trees, as the tree begins to lean as the back cut approaches the face cut. Josh prepares to step away quickly.

Amidst this change, Rogers and Son Forest Products has built a small 21st Century timber business based in Annapolis, diversified to meet the demands and resources available in the modern world. Specializing in small and custom jobs, Rogers and Son is known for the high quality of their work. Their projects span from small-scale timber harvest to forest road repairs for salmon habitat restoration, to firewood production. They do business in redwood burls, going into cut over lands and pulling out the massive oddly shaped stumps and shipping them off around the world where manufactures produce things such as dashboards for Rolls Royce, guitars, furniture and many other specialty items. Tanoak stands become firewood bundles purchased for $5 on the side of the road on the way to a family camping destinations along the coast. Tall straight-grained Douglas firs are trucked down to the port in Oakland where they are shipped out raw across the Pacific to Asia. Single redwood logs are custom harvested, delivered and installed for high-end landscaping and construction projects for wealthy Californians on the coast. You won’t find them on the internet. The company doesn’t have a website, succeeding on word of mouth jobs and the shrewd business sense of owner Darrel Rogers.

Regardless of the novel products and destinations the 21st century requires for a forestry company, the ongoing infatuation people have with wood products means that there is still work to be had in the woods around Annapolis for at least a few folks cutting trees. On a warm fall afternoon we joined timber feller Josh Spacek, and watched him drop 150 foot Douglas firs on a forested ranch just outside of Annapolis.

Josh was born and raised in this part of rural California. His grandfather was a logger and mill owner north of Annapolis in the coastal town of Manchester. His family emigrated from Wisconsin where some of the last big tree logging in the eastern United States happened. As the primevil forests of the upper Great Lakes disappeared, many logging families came to California for the promise of work in the logging camps. Josh loves these hills. He’s an avid deer hunter and steelhead fisherman. As tough as he is, he’ll leave a tree he’s supposed to cut if he sees a bird nest with eggs in it. He’s been falling timber for over a decade and before that he was a tree climber and trimmer. Now he’s known for being the best man to take down dangerous, difficult, and really big trees. He’s also a father of three little ones.

Running the saw blade down the trunk to save the energy of having to carry it. Behind him, Josh is running out a tape measure to determine where to section the trunk.

"Bucking the tree". Careful not to pinch his saw blade, Josh cuts the trunk into sections for transport.

While laws, ethics, and tools have evolved over the generations, its not just people’s love of wood products that persists but also the love and desire of some of us to work in the woods, carrying on a tradition that goes back thousands of years to the stone age, when humans hafted stone tools and employed careful burning to bring down big trees. Then as now, these trees produced everything from cooking utensils to homes. As Josh walks into the woods, a three-foot bar chainsaw over his shoulder and dog on his heels, behind him are generations of woods workers who did the same. What lies ahead for this profession is as uncertain as the future of towns like Annapolis.

Bio

David Moskowitzis a photographer and biologist based in north-central Washington. He is the author and photographer of two books, Wolves in the Land of Salmon and Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest.

Matt Nelson is a lifetime resident of Annapolis. He works in the logging and construction fields as well as in outdoor education, and wildlife conservation and research.

The whole process of gunning, felling, limbing and bucking the trunk took Josh about 15 minutes for this tree.

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Josh's dog Sis wanders the woods during the day while Josh fells trees.

MCP: Cowboy Coffee

Mountain Caribou Project presents: Cowboy Coffee

Everything you ever needed to know about making a really bad cup of coffee in the wilderness....and a little bit about endangered mountain caribou too!

MCP: Of Caribou and Foolish Apes

Guest blog post by Marcus Reynerson; photography by David MoskowitzMarcus Reynerson joined me for a week and a half on the Mountain Caribou Project in the Columbia mountains and Rocky mountains last month. Here are a the first of his reflections from our time in the field.--DM

The end of 88 km of logging roads in the Columbia Mountains. A recent rainforest clearcut.

Humans. Sometimes I find myself so unimpressed. After driving kilometer upon kilometer of BC logging roads though a clear-cut landscape, parts of which were old-growth inland temperate rainforest just 5 years ago, I could not escape my disappointment with Homo sapiens. It boggles my mind to think about how often we accept and value short-term gains at the cost of our long-term future. At the cost of our health, our children’s health, and the health of the planet that gives us life. The more blunt thought that pervaded my travels: “We are just a bunch of dumb apes.”

Marcus Reynerson inspecting a caribou antler he discovered in the old growth forest just uphill from the end of the road and the last clearcut in the valley.

Dave and I were on the trail to find sign – and eventually a live sighting hopefully – of the elusive mountain caribou. Dave was in the field for almost three weeks when I joined him in the Columbia mountains of southern British Columbia. Mountain caribou have developed a survival strategy that is based on being extremely hardy. Basically, they’ve adapted to thrive in environments that are marginal at best for other similar species. Unfortunately, Humans have heavily encroached upon an already hard-pressed landscape. Places ideal for these caribou to call home are dwindling at a precipitous rate. Climate change is taking a strong toll. As the temperature warms, plant communities and ecology are rapidly changing. In some places, the moist cool sub-alpine meadows that have historically supported caribou are disappearing as they become more forested. Overharvesting of timber is creating habitat amenable to deer, elk and moose, which bring predators that are following these ungulates into closer contact with caribou.

Log truck carrying old-growth cedar trees out of caribou country.

It was an incredible tension that I felt cruising the logging roads of British Columbia. For some reason, the province is still harvesting old-growth trees. I found myself incredulous that this was happening still in 2015. The valleys where caribou call home are so beautiful, while at the same time so sad and tragic. Such beauty and devastation all in one place, as far as the eye could see. I’m excited to dig deeper into this story. And I’m also nervous. While it’s a story about the Mountain caribou, it’s also a story about humans. I’m so impressed with the former. At this point I can’t say the same about the latter. More thoughts to come...

When Marcus Reynerson isn't waxing philosophical on the role of humans and caribou in the world, he is the coordinator of the Anake Outdoors School at Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall Washington.

Click here to learn more about the Mountain Caribou Project.

Trees at the edge of a clearcut. Upper Seymour River valley, British Columbia.

MCP: Finding Mountain Caribou in Summer

After 28 days searching for mountain caribou, exploring the places they call home, or have recently disappeared from, here is a summary of some of what I discovered:

Marcus Reynerson making his way across a wet meadow system in the Tonquin Valley, Rocky Mountains. Jasper National Park.

• If you are in mountain caribou habitat, there is a pretty good chance you are either getting harassed by mosquitos, enduring a cold wet summer storm, or both.

Fresh snow on the summit of a peak in the Columbia mountains after a summer storm.

• There are a lot of long logging roads in western Canada and if you are going to find mountain caribou, it will likely be all the way at the end of them, where clear cuts give way to the last stands of uncut forest at the tops of mountain valley and along ridge-lines.

The end of 88 km (55 miles) of logging roads in the Seymour River watershed. Here avalanche chutes mix with recent clearcuts of inland temperate rainforest and remnant patches of old cedar forests where caribou still linger.

• The threats to mountain caribou are varied across their range and even huge national parks and provincial preserves are not necessarily effective by themselves to protect these animals.

The Tonquin Valley, accessible only by trail, and completely contained within Jasper National Park, is home to the largest remaining concentration of caribou in the park but even here caribou numbers are declining rapidly.

• Climate change is here now.The effects of climate change are readily apparent already in many places where mountain caribou live.

Mount Edith Cavell, a famous peak and glacier in Jasper National Park and area still occupied by caribou. Like mountain environments around the globe, the glaciers in the Canadian Rockies and Columbia mountains are retreating quickly. Most of the glaciers I observed while in the field had no accumulation zone anymore, leaving them as large blocks of ice melting in the warming climate.

• Doing nothing is doing something, but perhaps not the something we want to do. Without landscape level conservation measures and ongoing agressive management of caribou and other species of wildlife caribou are ecologically connected to, mountain caribou will likely disappear very soon from much of their current range, as they already have from many places they recently existed. Much of this management is controversial and/or highly invasive to the wildlife and the humans who live, work, and play in caribou habitat including things like culling moose and deer populations, killing entire packs of wolves, landscape scale cessation of logging and or oil and gas mining activity which is the basis of the regional economy, restrictions on winter recreation activities, also an important regional revenue stream.

Moose tracks in the mud in the southern Selkirks. On my first trip to the area in 2009 I found only caribou sign in the area. On this trip all I could find was moose, elk and deer. Burgeoning moose and deer populations across much of the range of mountain caribou have lead to increased predation on caribou from wolves, mountain lions, and other carnivores whose populations are tied to moose and deer.

The survival of mountain caribou is not at all assured across much of their range. In the weeks and months to come I will continue to be researching this topic, planning future trips back to caribou country, collaborating with conservation organizations to help get the word out about this pressing conservation topic. Stay tuned!

MCP Field Notes: Cariboo Mountains

Looking across the Rocky Mountain Trench at the Hart Mountains from the Cariboo Mountains. The Fraser River oxbows through the trench which divides these two mountain ranges.

I made my furthest trip north for the project to explore a small corner of the Cariboo Mountains, just south of the town of Prince George, British Columbia. In these mountains and across the Rocky Mountain Trench, in the Hart Ranges, caribou numbers are fairing a bit better than further south. However, with lots of room to spread out in the summer across multiple vast mountain ranges, finding them this time of year proved to be a challenge. During the summer mountain caribou disperse across the subalpine forests of these mountains in order to reduce the chance of being detected by predators. This strategy apparently also works effective for avoiding curious humans as well!

Treeline meadows and ponds where I searched for caribou in the area.

The wet meadow system was miles from the closes road or trail. With huge amounts of inaccessible forested landscapes to spread out in, mountain caribou can seemingly disappear into these mountains.

A double rainbow at sunrise precedes a violent thunderstorm that rolled across the landscape shortly afterwards.

The closest I came to caribou on my excursion–some old scats found while out exploring.

I stumbled upon this little black bear while walking back to my truck at the end of a long day in the field.

Mount Sir Alexander, 10,745 ft (3275m) towers above the peaks around it in the Canadian Rockies, across the Rocky Mountain trench from the Cariboo Mountains.

MCP: Logging in Mountain Caribou Habitat

A log truck carrying western red cedar logs out of the home range of the Columbia North Caribou herd, past a sign warning motorists to watch out for wildlife on the road.

The timber industry has been the backbone of the economy in most of the interior of British Columbia for several generations. Industrial scale logging is also the primary source of the majority of challenges facing Mountain caribou. Because of this, sorting out how to protect caribou habitat while at the same time dealing with the demands of the very powerful timber industry (and modern civilization for that matter) for lumber has been an especially challenging task in attempts to conserve and restore caribou populations.

How well this has been done varies in different locations around the province. A few thing are clear. Mountain caribou depend on low and middle elevation old growth forests for early winter habitat, and high elevation old growth for winter habitat. Clearcuts and early stages of forest regeneration are prime habitat for moose and deer which attract attention from wolves and mountain lions who then prey on caribou more often in landscapes with a large logging footprint in them. Logging roads become access routes for humans on snowmobile in the winter to areas that are sensitive for caribou who are easily displaced by human recreation activities in the winter. A large amount of habitat has been set aside for mountain caribou which has curtailed logging in some areas and road use restrictions have been put in place as well. However, logging of both old growth and second growth forests continue in mountain caribou habitat in some places.

Lumber yard in Revelstoke, British Columbia. The logging industry is a primary employer in much of the region.

Mill worker on his way to work at the lumber mill in Revelstoke, British Columbia, a town where both timber and tourism are major and at times competing components of the economy. Mountain caribou conservation has put stresses on both in terms of restrictions on logging as well as the heliski and snowmobile recreation which are big business in the area.

British Columbia is the last place in the Pacific Northwest with significant stands of old growth forest still slatted for logging, both on the coast and in the interior. Conservation groups have used caribou protection as a tool to curtail logging in these ancient forests, much the spotted owl was used in the United States several decades ago—imperfectly in both cases. With caribou populations continueing to decline in much of their range logging interests have started looking at having these restrictions lifted once the caribou disappear from an area while conservation groups are looking at what might be the next lever for protecting whats left of this unique inland temperate rainforest.

A recently logged second growth forest in the Seymour River watershed. Industrial scale logging which employs large machinery to cut and remove logs often leaves a devastated appearing landscape behind, including lots of wood cut and left on the ground, to expensive to transport out for the value of what can be made from it.

The likely destination of the logs cut in the landscape above. Stacked lumber with floating logs beyond them close to Salmon Arm, British Columbia

Kim Shelton takes in the grandeur of a remnant stand of old growth western red cedar close to Trout Lake British Columbia. How we as a society place value on forests and trees such as these is highly varied. Whether places such as this, and the animals such as mountain caribou whom depend on them, will continue to exist in any significant quantity for future generations to argue about seems tenuous at the moment.

MCP Field Notes: North Columbia Herd.

Looking out across the section of the Columbia Mountains I explored within the home range of the North Columbia Caribou herd.

The town of Revelstoke, British Columbia sits on the banks of the Columbia River. North of town, on both banks of the reservoir created by the impounded Columbia lives the North Columbia caribou herd. This herd has been fairing better in the past several years than many of the herds further south. The reasons for this appear to include a collection of issues including habitat protections, limits on recreational impacts from snowmobiling and helicopter ski opporations and a drastic reduction in moose populations (through human hunting) which has lead to a natural decline in wolf populations and in turn less pressure on caribou. This herd has also been the focus of a program to pen some of the herd's pregnant females during the spring and early summer. The females and their calves which were born in the protection of the pen are released in the midsummer where they rejoin the rest of the caribou in the wild. This project is in its second year (Learn more about it at Revelstoke Caribou Rearing in the Wild). I spent three days in the heart of their range for this herd in the mountains northwest of Revelstoke.

Numerous sets of fresh caribou tracks in the area told me I was in the right spot. Pictured is the hind foot of a bull caribou. Caribou are the only native North American hoofed mammal to regularly show dewclaws (the marks behind the main cleaves, feral pigs found in many places, though none in caribou habitat, also often register their dewclaws), though they show up more regularly in the fronts than hinds.

Early one morning, close to first light, I caught my first glimpse of a mountain caribou, a bull with antlers in velvet. Female caribou also have antlers, though smaller than the males, another unique feature of this species.

The subalpine landscape that caribou appear to prefer is one made of dense forests and wet meadows. This is a species that is definitely NOT afraid to get its feet wet.

The older tracks of a grizzly bear warned me that these creatures might be in the area. I spotted a mom and cub in the morning twilight on the day after I spotted the caribou. They didn’t spot me as they crossed an opening in the forest but also didn’t linger long enough for me to capture a photo of them. Though intrigued, I choose not to follow them to see if I might get another chance to see them. A little ways on I discovered the fresh tracks of a bull moose and calf heading into the same section of forest. An interesting story might have unfolded between these mothers and children of two of North America’s most ornery large mammals. I left this one as another one of the many mysteries that these dark forests hold.

The mosquitos and black flies were atrocious.

Mountain Caribou Project: "The Wet Belt"

Inland Temperate Rainforest and Caribou

Mountain caribou have a distinctive migration pattern which involves moving up and down in elevation twice a year. In the late fall and early winter, as deep unconsolidated snows begin to blanket the higher elevations in the mountains, caribou head down in elevation and seek shelter and food in late successional western red cedar and western hemlock forests. These cedar-hemlock forests are amazingly similar to the rainforests found along the coast in the Pacific Northwest, creating a very unusual habitat--interior rainforest.

Kim Shelton marvels at ancient trees. Mature stands of western red cedar such as this one, have become very rare in mountain caribou habitat because of their valuable timber.

A much more common sight in the southern end of mountain caribou habitat. Over a century of logging have left the majority of low and mid-elevation temperate rainforests in a fragmented state with few late-successional stands left. These landscapes provide less food, less shelter and greater access to competitive ungulates and predators into caribou habitat. As caribou move into remnent patches of old trees they become more vulnerable to predators as compared to when they could spread out across a larger and less predator rich environment.

Subalpine Snow Forests

As the winter proceeds and the snowpack builds, caribou head up in elevation to mature stands of subalpine forest dominated by Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir where they feed almost exclusively on black tree lichen which grows on these trees close to treeline.

Kim Shelton reaches up toward the black tree lichen which grows along the trunk of this subalpine fir. The height of lichen growth indicates the approximate snowline in winters in these forests. Note that the lower portion of the tree has been scarred by a bear feeding on the inner-bark of the tree.

Black tree lichen on a subalpine fir, the chief food item in the winter diet of mountain caribou.

Forests, caribou, and people in a changing climate

Climate change models predict significant changes to the landscapes that caribou call home--with potentially much warmer and drier summers being possibly the most significant change to these landscapes. The impacts of a changing climate on both caribou and humans, who also depend on these forests for water which produces huge amounts of hydro-power in the United States and Canada, and wood which is the chief driver of the economy in this part of Canada, is not precisely known. It appears safe to say that it will add additional stresses to both the human and caribou economy.

Streams like this one coming out of Waldie lake in the southern Selkirks are feed by winter snowpack which provides defacto water storage for hydro-electric projects downstream. Climate models predict that this water storage service will be significantly reduced as the regional climate warms.

MCP Field Notes: A Day at Devils Hole

text by Kim Shelton, photos by David Moskowitz Monday morning David and I connected with Dark Woods Preserve manager Adrian Leslie at a coffee shop in the town Salmo. He was incredibly helpful, gave us a map, a forest service road radio to help us not get run over by barreling logging trucks and and then a tour of promising locations on the preserve. We toured through the miles of gravel roads of the Dark Woods preserve, a chunk of land with prime caribou habitat segmented by private land running right through the middle and countless clear cuts.

A cloudy day on Devils Hole, a subalpine lake in the Dark Woods Preserve.

That afternoon we walked out to Devils Hole lake, a subalpine lake in a remote corner of the preserve, at the end of over 30 km of logging roads. We went hoping to find caribou sign. What we found was ironic: an animal even more rare than the 12 Caribou in the area. We laughed at the rarity of them, wolverine tracks dotted the shoreline of Devils Hole lake.

The track of a wolverine along the shore of Devils Hole.

A white tailed deer grazed in the meadow on the opposite side of the lake as we snuck through the forest along a well used bear trail. Grizzly and black bear tracks marked the ground as we stalked along, pausing for Dave to get some shots of the deer as the mosquitos marauded us and we donned our head nets. We eventually spooked the deer and moved into the meadow to search for caribou sign. Nothing but more bear sign. As we made our way back along the trail Dave excitedly motioned me forward to see “screaming fresh” bear scat – right on the path we walked to come this way. A moment later a crack of breaking branches on the hill! I became very aware of the location of my bear spray on my body. The bear didn't show itself and we made our way back to the vehicle, pausing to dunk in the lake and ease the itching of mosquito bites all over our bodies.

Wet meadows at the upper end of Devil’s Hole. The scared tree in the foreground is a favorite marking post of the local bears.

We drove back to our camp spot, through the nature conservancy – clear cuts and logging roads--always conscious of any tracks in the road dust. An incredible day but no mountain caribou.

We set a camera trap close to Devils Hole which I will check in about a month. Stay tuned for results!

Mountain Caribou Project: Darkwoods Conservation Area

Caribou crossing sign close to Kootenay Pass on Canada’s Highway 3.

The South Selkirks herd is the last group of mountain caribou that still range back and forth across the international border between British Columbia and Washington and Idaho. Just north of the border Canadian Highway 3 crosses the Selkirk mountains over Kootenay Pass, where occasionally caribou are spotted by passing motorists, in Stagleap Provincial Park.

North of Stagleap, the Nature Conservancy of Canada has acquired a large parcel of land with the intention of preserving and restoring vital habitat for this herd of mountain caribou--the Darkwoods Conservation Area. However, these mountains are far from pristine--both the provincial lands and the Darkwoods Conservation Area are crisscrossed with forestry roads, and clearcuts of all sizes and ages. In many drainages, it is only the upper ends of the basin that have been spared cutting at one point or another. The Nature Conservancy of Canada purchased a large tract of land that had been previously managed for timber production. Since its purchase, along with stopping all timber harvest in caribou habitat within the preserve and protecting the existing uncut forest stands, the Nature Conservancy has been deactivating roads in caribou habitat.

Thunderstorm over the Darkwoods Conservation Area in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia

Stand of mature western red cedar and western hemlock preserved within the Darkwoods Conservation Area. Late successional stands such as this one are very rare in the southern Selkirks after decades of logging and fires at low and middle elevations in the region.

This landscape creates a maze of fragmented forest types for caribou to navigate while also leading to increased moose and deer populations at higher elevations. Kim Shelton joined me for a week to help search for caribou sign and carry photo equipment on ridiculous buggy bushwacks to several promising remote corners of these mountains. In a week of searching, location after location, where caribou where once abundant, we discovered the tracks and sign of moose, deer, and elk but the only tracks we found of caribou in a week of searching were a set of old tracks close to Kootenay Pass on Highway 3.

Linear features such as this road and power line corridor in the range of the Southern Selkirk herd, often act as routes for wolves, who hunt caribou, and humans, who’s presence can displace caribou, to access mountain caribou habitat.

Wolf tracks along the road running alongside the power line corridor. The province of British Columbia has carried out extensive predator control in this area, killing wolves from three different packs in an attempt to protect the remaining 13 caribou in the South Selkirks herd. These predator control efforts have been extremely contentious amongst various groups involved in caribou conservation.

Porcupine Lake in the Darkwoods Conservation Area. The Nature Conservancy of Canada completely removed a road that had been built into this lake to reduce human access and increase the quality of habitat for caribou in this subalpine basin.

A large clearcut south of the Darkwoods Conservation Area, outside of the preserve on private timber land. The  Nature Conservancy of Canada purchased Darkwoods to protect quality caribou habitat from ending up looking like this.

The large round front print of a mountain caribou.

Kim Shelton plowing through the subalpine brush in the heavily forested Selkirk mountains searching for signs of one the remaining members of the Southern Selkirks caribou herd.

Sunset on the dark woods of the Darkwoods Conservation Area.

Mountain Caribou Project: The Adventure Begins

Tomorrow I embark on a month of travels through the interior of British Columbia to learn about and photograph the world of mountain caribou. The mountain caribou of British Columbia, Washington, and Idaho are one of the most southern herd of caribou found anywhere on earth and their continued existence is threatened by a myriad of conservation challenges. Follow along here and on my instagram feed to learn more about these beautiful and endangered throwbacks to the Pleistocene. Over the course of the month, besides exploring and photographing in caribou country, I will also be meeting with people involved in caribou conservation and scouting for future trips to the region to fully capture the story of mountain caribou and the wild lands they call home.  Below are a few photos of mine from past trips to mountain caribou country. Many more to follow!

Caribou country in northeastern Washington’s Selkirk mountains.

Tracks of one of the members of the South Selkirks herd which travel back and forth across the USA-Canada border.

Caribou trail in the Selkirk mountains of southern British Columbia.

Grizzly bear tracks just north of the Washington-British Columbia border. Grizzly bears are also a sensitive species in much of this region. Over the next month I will be exploring and documenting the ecology of caribou and how they interact with the mountains they call home, the other wildlife they share the landscape with, and the people that live, work, and play in caribou country.

Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park. Mountain caribou populations are being closely monitored in even large wilderness landscapes such as in the Canadian Rockies.

Study Up! Learn more about mountain caribou here:

To learn more about the life history and conservation challenges of mountain caribou check out these websites as well:

• mountaincaribou.ca
• BC Ministry of the Environment: Mountain Caribou Recovery
• Nature Conservancy of Canada: Dark Woods Preserve. This will be one of my first stops on my journey.
• Revelstoke Caribou Rearing in the Wild.
• You can also learn more about mountain caribou tracks and sign in my field guide, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest and learn more about their relationship to wolves and wolf conservation in the chapter of my book Wolves in the Land of Salmon on the Selkirk mountains.

Trailing Black Bears in the North Cascades

This spring I spent a week out in the field with several colleagues from Cybertracker Conservation honing our tracking and trailing skills following the trails of black bears on the western slope of the North Cascades. I put together a brief video describing the art of trailing and documenting some of what we discovered on our adventures in the temperate rainforest. 

Interested in learning to trail bears and other wildlife? I offer custom classes in a wide variety of tracking subjects, including wildlife trailing.

Winter Mountaineering? Triple Couloirs on Dragontail Peak

Dragon tail Peak in the moonlight. The Triple Couloirs route starts in the obvious snow gully around the center of the face. Note the headlamps on the right side of the face. From our camp on the lake we watched a party retreat off of the face via multiple rappels in the dark.

The Pacific Northwest's mild winter has created early spring conditions in the mountains--a more stable snowpack up high and little snow at lower elevations making access to the high country easier. This weekend Cam Alford and I trekked into the edge of the Enchantment range in Washington's North Cascades to take a crack at the classic alpine mountaineering route Triple Couloirs. The route is one of several that ascends the northwest face of Dragontail Peak.

Cam Alford making his bed for our brief evening at Colchuck Lake, using our climbing rope as part of his mattress.

Inspecting equipment for our early morning start.

In the moonlight, Cam makes coffee for our pre-dawn start.

After we left camp at 5 am, unfortunately, my camera stayed tucked in my pack until high up on the route as we navigated three pitches of ice and the first two couloirs. After safely navigating into the third couloir, with all of the significant technical obstacles behind us I snapped a few shots. Here Cam ascends steep snow towards the bottom of the third couloir.

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Close to the summit of the Triple Couloirs on Dragontail Peak, Cam Alford looks out over the snow covered North Cascades.

A strait forward descent around the backside of the mountain brought us back to our camp and several grueling hours of hiking on a very icy trail and gated road got us back to our car and the end of 14 hours of almost continuous movement. Beers and burgers in Leavenworth shortly there after--sorry no photos of that either.

Time Lapse: 1,200 miles in the tracks of a lone wolf

With over half a year gone by since we completed the OR7 Expedition, our team has been busy working on the educational products which were a key motivator to take on the expedition to begin with. We have been delivering slideshows up and down the west coast and abroad (for a list of upcoming events I am speaking at click here, and for a complete list of all events by all our team members click here).

Reflections on the journey

The fact that OR7 found a mate and has produced a litter of pups in southwestern Oregon, well over 200 miles from the closest know breeding population of wolves demonstrates the amazing capacity for wolves to reestablish themselves in areas they have been absent from for decades. It also speaks to the excellent habitat condition for wolves which currently exist across much of the west including large sections of northern California. As has been made clear, in studies from around the globe, that large terrestrial carnivores play important roles ecologically in the natural systems they inhabit--especially in concert with each other. The re-establishment of wolves in parts of California, alongside the existing recovered populations of mountain lions and black bears in the state, would be a very real step forward towards creating more diverse, resilient, and self-regulating wildlife populations and biological communities in parts of California where humans have significantly altered the landscape through removal of some species and heavy management of others.

Wildlife and wild land conservation in the 21st century

The world is a very different place now than it was in the early 1900's when the last wolves were being extirpated from the west coast. Human populations have shifted away from rural areas towards urban centers. Even in the last 50 years, since our society adopted the concept of protecting wild landscapes in the form of Wilderness, the world has shifted greatly. OR7 shows the scale at which we need to think about conservation and co-existance. Wolves speak to the very real limitations of Wilderness preservation. As we have begun to understand how interconnected ecological processes are we have learned about the vulnerability and ineffectiveness of islands of protected Wilderness. Conservation in the 21st century must look at protecting and restoring broad connected landscapes. With such a broad perspective on the types of lands that need to be incorporated into conservation planning, its impossible to consider removing human uses from all these areas. Because of this, modern conservation needs to take a hard look at the human-nature dichotomy which was enshrined in the Wilderness Act and move towards an appreciation that humans and human uses are part of the natural world. Rather than isolation of our impacts from nature and maintaining space for wild things like wolves in places far from where most people live, the way forward must be one of intermingled uses. A modern wolf like OR7 has learned to deal with a landscape covered with roads, high speed traffic, industrial scale agriculture and forestry. Similarly modern humans need to learn how to share the landscape once again with large carnivores, wild rivers, unmanaged forests, and landscapes with both the capacity to feed us, and preserve the diversity of life on which we as a species ultimately depend.

Expedition Time Lapse Video

Here is a time lapse of the entire Wolf OR7 Expedition created by my team member Jay Simpson and set to an original poem of another team member Galeo Saintz. Enjoy!

Fall in the North Cascades: Alpine Larch

An alpine larch and the granite spires of Kangaroo Ridge in the North Cascades.

All along the high ridges and basins of the eastern slope of the North Cascades, lives a distinctive tree. The alpine larch (Larix lyallii) eeks out its existence at the very edge of tree-line in these mountains, acting as the gateway to the alpine above and the immense trees which characterize lower elevations in these mountains. Larch trees are the only conifer tree in the world that has deciduous needles and each fall the brilliant gold of these trees lights up the crisp fall air in the high mountains.

Darcy Ottey on a fall outing in the North Cascades of Washington.

During the fall, the limited range of alpine larch is illuminated brilliantly all along the edge of treelike in the high country.

At the lower elevations in their range alpine larch blend with subalpine fir and Engelmenn spruce.

A grove of alpine larch below the snow covered north face of Frisco Peak and the Lyle glacier.

A few alpine larch dot the upper reaches of Early Winters Creek with the iconic Liberty Bell massif beyond.

Back to where it all began...Alpine climbing in the Alps

I have been lucky enough to spend the end of August climbing in the French Alps out of the town of Chamonix with my friends Erin Smart and Forest McBrian, owners and guides for Borealis Mountain Guides. Erin, who has been skiing and climbing in the French Alps since she was a teenager provided me with a brilliant introduction to the climbing culture of the area. Having known Forest for many years and his love of all things related to the art of Alpinism and most things French, it was a pleasure to finally experience the mountains which I had heard about from his stories--mountains which have inspired generations of world class alpinists including Forest (whose exploits include first ascent mountaineering routes and first descent ski mountaineering routes, as well as a burgeoning writing career including a recent article in Alpinist on the famed Pickets Range in the North Cascades).

Mountaineering, European Style

Having come of age in the mountains of western North America, reading about the exploits of John Muir and Fred Becky, I always assumed that suffering through long approaches, doing battle with dense brush, brutal mosquitoes, crossing raging snowmelt filled creeks was part of the entrance fees for access to the splendor of the high mountains. Here in Europe, there is a bit of different sensibility. Approaches are manicured, ladders and footholds are added to the landscape to expedite travel, cable cars provide access from the valley bottom to the heart of the glacier in minutes, beautiful helicopter serviced mountain huts await with wine or tea to be had on the deck at the end of a day of climbing followed by 3 course dinners and a cozy place to spend the night. And just beyond the hut, or the exit from the lift, lays some of the most stunning mountain scenery and stellar alpine climbing routes of anywhere in the world.

Erin Smart heads out on the snow arete leading away from the Aguille du Midi. Amazingly enough this photo was taken just a few meters from where the lift drops tourists, climbers and skiers off, leaving right from the town of Chamonix. One minute I was on the street eating a fresh pastry from a local bakery and 15 minutes later I found myself in some of the most stunning alpine terrain I have traversed in my life.

Erin navigating fresh snow on the Cosmiques arete, a classic climbing route on the west side of the Aguille du Midi.

Erin smart leading out on mixed terrain.

At 4810 meters (15,781 feet), Mount Blanc is the highest peak in the Alps. Clouds stream off of the lee side of the heavily glaciered peak.

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The Mere de Glace glacier flows down off of Mount Blanc and the surrounding peaks. While still miles long, the thickness of the glacier has shrunk dramatically over recent decades…an example of the shifting climate in the region.

Erin Smart on the trail into the Envers Hut, situated above the Mere du Glace.

Situated in an almost fairy tale like setting, the Envers des Aguilles Hut, managed by the French Alpine club provides lodging and food for climbers.

Mountain guide  Miles Smart at a belay on a route above the Envers hut.

Forest McBrian examines the Eperon des Cosmiques route before our ascent.

Forest McBrian leading out on a traversing pitch lower on the route.

Erin getting into the crux moves of the route, a series of cracks leading through a large roof.

Erin pulling over another thoughtful move on the same crux pitch of the route.

Forest wandering up through a series of cracks in beautiful granite towards the top of the route.

The view from a belay stance on the route. Mount Blanc in the background.

Mountaineering, Glaciers and Climate Change in the North Cascades

Darcy Ottey on the approach to the Colonial Glacier cirque. Colonial Creek falls off to the left with Colonial Peak above it.

In August, Darcy Ottey and I went to explore a corner of the North Cascades we had never been to: the high peaks and glaciers just above the the south end Diablo reservoir, off of the North Cascades Scenic Highway in northern Washington State. After years of seeing Colonial Peak from the Highway when driving through, we picked what turned out to be a stormy summer week to venture into the area.

An arduous approach

Hours of grinding up a steep but established climbers route through lower and mid elevation forests eventually popped us out above treeline on glacier carved slabs along a ridgeline leading towards Pyramid Peak. From hear a short traverse across talus and old avalanche debris got us to the entrance to a glaciated citadel of mountains—the upper Colonial Creek cirque.

Camp on the edge of the recently formed lake at the terminous of the Colonial glacier.

A blanket of clouds cover lower elevations in the North Cascades with high peaks sitting like islands in the sea at sunrise. The image is similar to how these mountains often appeared during the ice age when glaciers often covered lower elevations in much the same way.

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A dynamic landscape

Not surprisingly, when we reached where the map noted the snout of the Colonial glacier should be we found no ice. The glacier, like most glaciers in the North Cascades (and indeed across the planet), has receded significantly. Nearly a quarter mile up stream we found the new terminus of the glacier, where it ends in a newly exposed lake, in a depression carved out by the glacier and now filled with melt water and icebergs—detached chunks of the crumbling glacier. Thunderstorms roiled a we elected to avoid campsites on the exposed rock prow above the lake, instead choosing to set up camp on the only flat spot we could find adjacent to the lake.

Receeding glaciers leave behind moonscapes of scoured bedrock covered with piles of rubble and rock flour.

Glacial ice exposed at the very top of the Colonial glacier (upper left of this photo) suggests that this glacier no longer has an accumulation zone. Under current conditions, it is just a matter of time before the glacier disappears completeley–perhaps within the next several decades.

Current maps show glacial ice extending much further down then where the actual terminous of the glacier is now. The retreat of the glacier has created this newly formed lake. Chunks of glacial ice still float in the lake, demonstrating how quickly this landscape is changing due to shifts in the climate.

Glacial lakes such as this one are filled with large amounts of ground rock powder giving the water a dark milky green appearance.

Earth, sky and water merge with a heavy fog sitting over the snow and ice choked glacial lake.

Inclement weather dashed our plans for several peak climbs but did not deter us from venturing further south, over the Colonial glacier and onto the Neve glacier.

Inclement weather dashed our plans for several peak climbs but did not deter us from venturing further south, over the Colonial glacier and onto the Neve glacier.

The vast exapanse of one of the largest glaciers in the North Cascades, the Neve Glacier with Snowfield Peak sitting at its head, on the left side of the frame. Seen from the Neve-Colonial glaicer col.

Darcy Ottey descending onto the Neve Glacier as a cloud rols over the glacier.

Heading into a cloud on the glacier.

On the broad expanse of the glacier, the peaks and landmarks disappear leaving an eerie world with land and sky blending together into a world of white.

Paul Bunyon’s Stump, Pinnicle, and Pyramid peaks from Colonial-Neve glacier col.

Looking north from the area into the upper Skagit river valley. Ross Lake, a large reservoir built to provide hydro-electric power for the city of Seattle is a more obvious sign of our species quest for energy then the retreating glaciers of the region but both reflect the long reach of modern human’s influence on even the most wild and rugged landscapes in the world.

Descending into the clouds from the glacial cirque back into the forests of the North Cascades.

Sections of forests on the western slope of the North Cascades get enough precipitation to qualify as temperate rainforest. Only 10,000 years ago these slopes likely appeared much like the higher elevations do now, having just been released from retreating glaicers which filled the mountains and flowed down into the ocean. Climate models predict these mountains to get warmer and wetter in the decades to come. Glaciers will retreat and forests will advance unslope in an ongoing advance of forests through these mountains which began millenia ago.