Photo by Ghost Bear Institute / Nature Labs
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Summary
Lichens: ecosystems unto themselves. They’re diverse, apparently ubiquitous, and foundational to life on terrestrial earth. But this episode isn’t really about lichen. It’s about an endangered species that relies on a lichen diet – a diet that is disappearing as fast as the old growth forest in British Columbia. Southern Mountain Caribou are at the nexus of a heated debate about conservation. What can we save? What should we let go? And most importantly, what are we willing to admit about the policies that brought us to this point?
Correction: The original version of this episode wrongly stated that the BC government did not notify the public about its plan to move the South Selkirk and South Purcell caribou herds. In fact, this move was publicized and supported by environmental groups.
Thanks to Jake Billingsley for bringing this to our attention.
An arboreal lichen (Bryoria sp.) – A critical component of the Southern Mountain Caribou diet (Photo by Trevor Goward)
Show Notes
This episode features Trevor Goward, Sarah Cox, and Dr. Tara Martin.
For more information on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, please visit https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/.
For more information on caribou in the Wells Gray region, please visit https://1000clearcuts.ca/
Special thanks to The Narwhal for sharing their excellent journalism, The Land Conservancy of British Columbia, Fern Yip, Briony Penn, Ilana Fonariov, the Access to Media Education Society, Trevor Goward, Curtis Bjork, and, of course, Purple.
Thanks to Nicole Jahraus, Conor Fanning, Ilana Fonariov, Cassy Allan, and Simone Miller for reviewing and improving this episode.
Music for this episode was produced by Leucrocuta, Leave, Spencer W Stuart, Hildegard’s Ghost, and Sunfish Moonlight.
A lot of research goes into each episode of Future Ecologies, including great journalism from a variety of media outlets, and we like to cite our sources:
Canada British Columbia Conservation Agreement for Southern Mountain Caribou in British Columbia. (2019). https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/373/2019/03/Draft-Section-11-Bilateral-Conservation-Agreement-2019_03_08.pdf
Cox, S. (2019, June 20). B.C. government delays endangered caribou plan as herds dwindle. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-government-delays-endangered-caribou-plan-herds-dwindle/
Cox, S. (2019, April 19). B.C. stalls on promise to enact endangered species law. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-stalls-on-promise-to-enact-endangered-species-law/
Cox, S. (2019, April 16). Caribou protection plan spawns racist backlash in northeast B.C. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/caribou-protection-plan-spawns-racist-backlash-in-northeast-b-c/
Cox, S. ( 2019, March 21). Agreements mark ‘turning point’ for six B.C. caribou herds, but leave most herds hanging. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/agreements-mark-turning-point-six-b-c-caribou-herds-leave-most-herds-hanging/
Cox., S. (2019, March 14, 2019). B.C. approves 314 new cutblocks in endangered caribou habitat over last five months. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-approves-314-new-cutblocks-in-endangered-caribou-habitat-over-last-five-months/
Cox, S. (2019, January 18). ‘A sad day’: two more B.C. mountain caribou herds now locally extinct. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/a-sad-day-two-more-b-c-mountain-caribou-herds-now-locally-extinct/
Cox, S. (2018, December 8). ‘We have left it too late’: scientists say some B.C. endangered species can’t be saved. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/we-have-left-it-too-late-scientists-say-some-b-c-endangered-species-cant-be-saved/
Environment Canada. (2014). Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou, Southern Mountain population (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Canada. Species at Risk Act Recovery Strategy Series. Environment Canada, Ottawa. viii + 68 pp. https://www.registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=5837FBB5-1
Goward, T. (2008 - 2012). Twelve readings on the lichen thallus, I - XII. Evansia, 25-29. https://www.waysofenlichenment.net/ways/readings/index
Intergovernmental Partnership Agreement for the Conservation of the Central Group of the Southern Mountain Caribou. (2019, February 21). https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/373/2019/03/Caribou-Partnership-Agreement.pdf
Lekstrom, B. (2019). The Path Forward to Recover the Caribou Plan in Northern British Columbia. https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/373/2019/06/Premiers-Report.pdf
Matthews, H. (2019, June 7). What the debate around Indigenous genocide says about Canada. Macleans. https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/what-the-debate-around-indigenous-genocide-says-about-canada/
Randall, C. (2019, July 15). A small town’s economy. Endangered caribou. Which do we protect? The Gaurdian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/15/caribou-revelstoke-british-columbia
Semeniuk, I. (2018, September 14). Too expensive to save? Why the best way to protect endangered species could mean letting some go. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-too-expensive-to-save-new-approach-to-protecting-endangered-species/
Spribille, T. et al. (2016, June 29). Basidiomycete yeasts in the cortex of ascomycete macrolichens. Science Vol. 353, Issue 6298, pp. 488-492. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6298/488
This podcast includes audio recorded by ciccarelli, dikolson, YleArkisto, ikbenraar, guyburns, TRNGLE, shredder10, rambler52, caculo, bassboybg, MBARI_MARS, hja, and justkiddink, protected by Creative Commons attribution licenses, and accessed through the Freesound Project.
You can subscribe to and download Future Ecologies wherever you find podcasts - please share, rate, and review us. Our website is futureecologies.net. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, iNaturalist, Soundcloud and Youtube. We’re an independent production, and you can support us on Patreon - our supporters have access to cool supporter-only mini-episodes and other perks.
Future Ecologies is recorded on the unceded territories of the Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓əm) Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh), and Tsleil- Waututh (Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) Nations - otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia. It is also recorded on the territories of the Penelakut, Hwiltsum, and other Hul’qumi’num speaking peoples, otherwise known as Galiano Island, British Columbia.
Transcription
Introduction Voiceover 00:01
You are listening to season two of Future Ecologies.
[Sound of gentle waves breaking, then eery organ music starts playing with the sound of running water in the background. Eery acoustics continues as Adam speaks]
Adam Huggins 00:10
I'm standing in scrubby coniferous forest, perched at the edge of a 500 foot sheer drop into a River Canyon below. The canyon, carved by glacial floods at the end of the last ice age into the high volcanic plateau of central British Columbia, is the centerpiece of Wells Gray Provincial Park. This is caribou, grizzly bear, and soapberry country. I'm with a small group of naturalists and dreamers, listening to renowned lichenologist, Trevor Goward, introduce us to the mysterious world of lichens over the roar of one of the highest waterfalls in Canada.
[Sound of running water in the background]
Trevor Goward 00:46
So just to introduce you briefly to-to lichen. I-I assume that some of you don't know everything there is to know about lichen [laughter]. Between you and me, neither do I but I know a few things that I've picked up over the years.
Trevor Goward 00:57
Uhm, one of the, one of the easiest things to-to recognize is that lichens come in different shapes and sizes. If you look in the trees, you see these hair lichens hanging off, three-three dimensional, they're benefiting from light that comes from all directions. They do best in places where there's lots of either fog or cloud, where the light is being scattered. Because you can, you can imagine that they want to get light from all-all dimensions. On the ground, where there are flat leafy lichens, they benefit from having the light come from the surface. But-but that, and that, and then the crustose lichen you can see on these rocks here.
[Eery organ music intensifies as Trevor speaks]
[Soothing and calming music beings]
Mendel Skulski 01:33
Lichens are everywhere, if you stopped to look for them. Orange sunburst crusts on the bark of trees, tiny black spots on rocks, leafy lobed clumps on the ground, or pale green tangles hanging from branches, often mistaken for moss. Famously, lichens are pioneer organisms, able to survive in some pretty extreme environments. They were perhaps one of the first types of life to move out of the sea onto terrestrial Earth, creating soil and setting the stage for vascular plants. The word symbiosis was coined to describe lichen, which is not a single organism, but in fact, multiple organisms sharing a single body called the thallus.
Trevor Goward 02:25
Their commonality is it all of them are a relationship. An emergent property of a relationship between a fungus, an alga, or as we now know, two or more, three or four or five, who knows, different fungi, and any number of photosynthesizing organisms including algae, and cyanobacteria. So-so they are, they are in effect, ah, ecosystems.
[Inquisitive and interesting music starts]
Mendel Skulski 02:53
Trevor is referring to a discovery made just a few years ago. Traditionally, lichens were known to be a partnership between a single fungus and a single photobiont. The explanation was that the alga or cyanobacterium provides the food, the sugars of photosynthesis, and the fungus provides the structure and digestive enzymes. A drought proof house that can unlock the mineral nutrients of bare rock. And that was pretty much the whole story for 150 years, as researchers struggled to recreate lichen mutualisms in the lab. Then, in 2016, a third partner was found. Another type of fungus...yeast is critically intertwined within many lichens.
[Inquisitive and interesting music continues]
Trevor Goward 03:37
I used to say, I'm actually famous for having said that ah, lichens are fungi that discovered agriculture [slight background laughter] because there was another paradigm working and I sort of said this, oh, okay. But then I, then I wrote some essays which one of the essays I said, No, that's wrong. Lichen is not a fungus that discovered agriculture. A lichen is eight different things. Of which fungi, that discovered agriculture is one. And they're all, they're all happening, because we're talking about process now. They're all happening simultaneously to one another. We can like talk about them one at a time, because our relationship to process is-is confounded by the fact that process is embedded in time. The one thing that science is about, I'll say this because it's important, it's about power over the world. That's what science is about. But-but in terms of the lichen, the scientist can't see the emergent property. A biologist, as a scientist, cannot touch the thing they study, they cannot touch life. They can touch the parts, they can work probabilistically, gain power, but they can never touch life itself. The lichenologist, as scientists, are the only people in the world who can't see a light [substantial pause] because a lichen is an emergent property. So the-the emergent property, to say a few words about that, is a situation where the outcome, uhm, can't be predicted ahead of time and often can't even be worked out from a knowledge of the parts. So the properties of the whole are other than the properties of the parts.
[Sound of flowing water]
Trevor Goward 05:26
And this gets now, takes us to the, to the place where lichens, they're different from everything. But they're also metaphorical for everything because every single thing that's macroscopic is based on exactly the same principle, right? Every cell is made up just as the lichen is of its parts, every cell is made up of parts have come together, that have created emergent properties, that led us to have this conversation, would not be possible without emergent property. And I'm going to take it one further, and this is, this is, this has been a long, long unfolding for me personally. As somebody who thought about lichens for a long time, but I understand, I think I understand now, I think it's fair to say that the reason that emergence is so hard to understand is because emergence is everything.
[Soothing and enchanting organ music]
Trevor Goward 06:21
You see what I'm talking about? It takes you to another place. And the place that it eventually takes you to is the belief, not the belief, the knowledge that the world is alive.
[Sound of flowing water]
Trevor Goward 06:34
And that we have missed the lightness. It's because we've missed the lightness of the world, that we're going to kill ourselves.
[Sound of flowing water]
[Future Ecologies theme music begins]
Mendel Skulski 06:45
And that, dear listeners, is exactly what motivated us to start this show. I'm Mendel.
Adam Huggins 06:52
I'm Adam. And before we embark on a new season of forays into the natural world, it's worth rolling for a moment on just how dire our current situation really is.
Mendel Skulski 07:02
These days it really does feel like we're standing at a crossroads.
Adam Huggins 07:06
And if we're just gonna stand here, like a bunch of idiots, then we might as well share some good stories.
Introduction Voiceover 07:13
Broadcasting from the unceded, shared, and asserted territories of the Penelakut, Hwlitsum, and other Hul’qumi’num speaking peoples, this is Future Ecologies, where your hosts - Adam Huggins and Mendel Skulski - explore the shape of our world, through ecology, design, and sound.
[Theme music fades out]
Adam Huggins 07:53
We've already introduced you to the renowned lichenologist, Trevor Goward, and his somewhat heretical ideas about lichens This is all a bit of a red herring though. This episode really isn't about lichens. It's about the southern mountain caribou. We'll return to Trevor in a moment. But first, we need to introduce you to Sarah Cox.
Sarah Cox 08:13
My name is Sarah Cox. I am a reporter for the Narwhal, an online news outlet that covers Canada's natural world.
Mendel Skulski 08:21
This podcast relies on the hard work of academics, knowledge holders, and other journalists.
Adam Huggins 08:27
And we always try to cite our sources, which you should check out on our website. Because for all you know, we could be totally making all this stuff up.
Mendel Skulski 08:36
Anyway, Sarah is one of those journalists. She's been following the plight of the Southern mountain caribou of British Columbia for years, although she'd be the first to tell you that she never expected for caribou to be her beat. One more thing, for our US listeners, the last herd of caribou in the United States, which was located in the Selkirk mountains of northern Washington and Idaho was extirpated last year, that means that caribou now only occurred north of the Canadian border.
Adam Huggins 09:07
For most of us, the reindeer of Santa's sleigh are the closest we'll ever come to seeing caribou. So Sarah is going to give us a primer on Rangifer tarandus.
[Sound of jangling bells]
Sarah Cox 09:19
This is an animal that has been on the planet for about 2 million years, since about the time that Homo erectus walked out of Africa and it evolved from a small South American deer. And caribou are Ice Age megafauna that survive past the end of the last ice age unlike steppe bison, unlike woolly mammoths, and they adapted to live in these, uhm, snowy climates. Their hooves are kind of shaped like two half-moons, and they grow longer in the wintertime for purchase on ice. They have a very thick coat that's kind of like an insulating layer so that they can stay buoyant swimming, and they have survived for millions of years, but they might not survive us.
[Uptempo reflective music]
Mendel Skulski 10:16
In Canada, caribou historically extended from the Pacific archipelago of Haida Gwaii in the West, all the way across to Newfoundland in the east. When you think about Canada, you might imagine maple leaves, Mounties, or moose.
Adam Huggins 10:30
To say nothing of Drake or the Raptors.
Mendel Skulski 10:32
But Trevor and Sarah would argue you should really think about caribou.
Trevor Goward 10:36
This Canada has an emblematic animal, it would be caribou.
Sarah Cox 10:42
We see caribou all the time, because they're on the Canadian quarter. So every time we pull out a quarter we're-we're looking at a caribou and these are highly endangered animals right across Canada right now and they're basically disappearing on our watch.
[Somber instrumental music begins]
Adam Huggins 10:58
There are four recognized subspecies of caribou in Canada. These include the Peary and Barren-ground caribou of the far north, the Porcupine caribou of Alaska and the Yukon, and the Woodland caribou of central and southern Canada. Confusing, I know and it only gets more confusing for here. They're largely confined to frozen landscapes from the Arctic step to the high mountains. In fact, the range of caribou across Canada conforms almost exactly to the extent of either permanently or partially frozen land.
[Instrumental jazz type music begins]
Adam Huggins 11:34
Now, you might ask how exactly these large ungulates survive in such harsh conditions. And Trevor would tell you...
Trevor Goward 11:41
Caribou and reindeer as a, as a group have evolved to live on lichens and lichens are the unifying feature, just as caribou are a unifying feature of Canada. So lichens are the unifying feature of caribou. What's special about this is that only caribou, among the ungulates, can eat indefinite amounts of lichens and have intestinal floras that are adapted to break down the proteins that make up these lichens. And these lichens, they thrive in the north for most caribou and in the mountains at elevation.
Adam Huggins 12:15
And that's where we find mountain caribou, which are a subset of woodland caribou. Woodland caribou are distinguished by their forest dwelling lifestyle, and among woodland caribou, the southern mountain caribou of central and southern British Columbia are uniquely adapted to the environmental extremes of their Alpine summer ranges.
Trevor Goward 12:34
The caribou that I'm interested in is a subset of the woodland caribou and it differs from all other caribou and reindeer. All other caribou and reindeer in the world in the wintertime, paw for lichens that grow on the ground. The word caribou, apparently is Mi’kmaq word that means the one that paws– that paws for their food. The one exception, globally, is the mountain caribou or the deep snow caribou of Southern British Columbia. These animals live in the mountains, deep snow country, where in the wintertime, pawing for food is not possible, because the snow is two to three to four even to five meters deep. Here, these animals, to survive, have learned uniquely in the world to forage on lichens that grow on the branches of trees.
[Sound of hooves on ground (caribou walking) followed by swallowing food]
[Enchanting music begins as Mendel starts to speak]
Mendel Skulski 13:31
It's this trait of eating arboreal lichens that has allowed these caribou to thrive in snow that is simply too deep to dig through. It's what's allowed them to survive as far south as Washington and Idaho in the first place. It's been a winning strategy until just the past hundred years or so. These animals are...
Sarah Cox 13:50
Highly endangered and so we have 54 herds of caribou in BC. Thirty of them are at risk of extinction and of those 30 herds, uhm, about a dozen herds have fewer than 25 animals remaining.
Adam Huggins 14:06
Of those herds, there are only 10 remaining of the deep snow caribou that Trevor is describing. So how does an animal that survives in the harshest possible conditions, on a diet of lichen, become so vulnerable in the vastness of British Columbia. It has to do in part with the conditions that allow for the growth of arboreal lichens, or hair lichens, which grow from the branches of trees. Lichens, which Trevor has spent his career studying.
[Enchanting music fades out]
[Sounds of birds chirping in the distance while Trevor speaks]
Trevor Goward 14:37
There are perhaps a dozen species of these hair lichens, they hang from the trees like locks of hair, tresses of auburn and green colored hair on the branches of trees and they can grow in some places to tremendous abundance. The highest biomass that's ever been recorded is something of the order of three metric tons per-per hectare, which is a lot of lichens hanging from the branches of trees. The tricky bit [exhales], from the point of view of these caribou, is that these lichens grow only in the branches of old trees or rather, they can be young trees, but they're in old forests. For more than half a century, caribou biologists have understood that there's something about old forests that's conducive to the development of heavy hair lichen loadings, without which they simply couldn't exist.
[Sound of trees gently rustling in the wind and birds chirping]
Mendel Skulski 15:30
Hair lichens are strikingly beautiful. They have names like usnea, bryoria, and alectoria. Some are edible and considered delicacies. Others have been used as medicines for millennia. There are a ton of variables that can affect where and how much they grow. These include temperature, precipitation, and nitrogen deposition. But the key factor in BC forests is actually how old they are.
Trevor Goward 15:57
Part of what I've done in the past few decades is just to ask why this is happening. Why- why there's this association of hair lichens and old forests and the answer is actually fairly simple. Although it's-it's also difficult to express.
Adam Huggins 16:12
This is very on-brand for Trevor.
Trevor Goward 16:15
It comes down to the idea that hair lichens need certain attributes of climate. They need high humidity, fog, preferably, or mist ventilation, that is to say, windiness to dry them out after-after having been wetted and they need stability. They don't do well on the branches of trees that are growing rapidly. They also grow above all, on the defoliated portions of branches. If you can imagine a tree that's young, the tree is full of needles, but as that tree becomes older and older...
[Forest sounds as Adam speaks]
Adam Huggins 16:49
Basically, young coniferous trees tend to look like Christmas trees. They have needles from toe to tip 360 degrees. But as trees get older, a lot older, and taller, they leave behind the lower branches and focus their energy on growing needles towards the tops and the outside of the tree, leaving lots of prime real estate on the lower and inner branches for hair lichens to grow. Try to imagine a forest of trees like this, providing space ventilation, and exposure for hair lichens. These are the only forests that can support southern mountain caribou through harsh winters.
Trevor Goward 17:25
As I've said, this isn't easy to explain, but it is easy in a diagram to see immediately that the trees simply must be old. There's a ratio that has to be in place. And that's really the secret to the requirement of caribou to old forest.
Mendel Skulski 17:38
This is classic ecology. The mountain caribou are entirely dependent on the adequate growth of hair lichens in their winter range. And these lichens only thrive in old forests. And this is a problem because as Trevor points out...
Trevor Goward 17:53
Notwithstanding the old saying that money doesn't grow on trees. In fact, money does grow on trees and-and is an entire industry we call the forest industry that's really dedicated to converting trees into money. And it's a huge industry that has been transforming formerly old forests into young plantation forests all across Canada. But in this context all across the mountains that have been the home range of the mountain caribou.
Mendel Skulski 18:19
Much of the high elevation forest that mountain caribou range on during the summer has been protected, in part because its value to the forest industry is low. But in the winter, when mountain caribou are forced to retreat to lower elevations, they rely on forests that have been a prime target for industry. And as the remaining old growth forest in BC has continued to disappear, year after year, so to have the caribou. The situation is now so dire that many believe we are witnessing the extinction of the mountain caribou.
Adam Huggins 18:52
So that's the mountain caribou. But this episode isn't really about caribou.
Mendel Skulski 19:01
Uhm [laughs slightly]. What?
Adam Huggins 19:02
Not really anyway.
Mendel Skulski 19:05
So what's it about?
Adam Huggins 19:07
It's about how we make decisions about what species are worth saving. And we'll dive right into that after the break.
[Inquisitive and interesting music starts, then ends abruptly as Adam begins to speak]
Adam Huggins 19:20
So we've been talking about the endangered southern mountain caribou of British Columbia, and the hair lichens they rely on for food. For the past 200 years, their food supply and their winter range has been continually encroached upon by human expansion, ranching, mining, settlement, and logging. But caribou are only one of over 1800 species considered to be at risk in British Columbia alone. And many of these received far less attention and funding, which is why we need to bring another voice into the conversation.
Tara Martin 19:54
My name is Tara Martin, and I'm a professor of conservation Science at the University of British Columbia.
Mendel Skulski 20:00
Tarah runs the conservation decisions lab at UBC. She cut her teeth working and studying in Australia, a land famous for its history of extremely challenging conservation conundrums.
Adam Huggins 20:11
And if you don't believe us, you can google cane toads. Or check out my favorite New York Times headline from the past year so far, quote, "Australia is deadly serious about killing millions of cats", end quote.
[Sound of angry cat]
[Light jazz drums begin Tara begins to speak and increases in volume as she continues to speak]
Tara Martin 20:26
What was really, I think profound in Australia, was actually some of the, ah, researchers and they're thinking, we can't save every species in every place. It's just not possible. If we have 7 billion plus people on the planet, there's no way that we can save everything everywhere. And so we need to make choices. And we often have insufficient resources to even do the things that we're mandated to do to even protect the species at risk in Canada. And it-it can seem really hard-nosed, you know, to be making decisions based on resource availability. But the reality is as that is what governments do, that is what NGOs do. That's what any business on the planet does. They're constantly trying to make the best decision given the resources you have available. How do we save as many species as possible with the money that we have at hand?
[Jazz drums continue]
Mendel Skulski 21:22
On its face, I think this is something we can all agree on. We have lots of species at risk, finite resources, and a desire to save as many things as possible. So Tara and her team created a tool called Priority Threat Management.
Tara Martin 21:38
So Priority Threat Management is a tool that my team and I developed back in Australia. This idea was really to build a tool that would identify and solve the problem of how do we save as many species for the minimum cost.
Multiple voice reel 21:54
The most species for the least possible costs.
Tara Martin 21:58
There's really three things that we need to know to solve that problem. The first is, what is the benefit of management actions? What's the difference between doing nothing for a species and implementing this particular management action? The difference between those two is that is the benefit of that management action.
[Old-school slide projector advance sound]
Mendel Skulski 22:17
That's question one. Questions two, and three.
Tara Martin 22:21
What is the cost of that management action? And what is the feasibility? What's the social political feasibility? And what's the technical feasibility of that action? So yes, those three things, estimating that benefit the cost and feasibility sounds simple, but it's, of course, not simple because it's actually not things that we write about and study and published in the peer reviewed literature. These are things that sit in the minds of people that have been working in the field for decades trying to recover these species and ecosystems. And so we've had to devise very robust ways of extracting knowledge from-from people. Locking people in a room for a week and-and running them through a very structured expert elicitation process.
[Jazz drums stop abruptly]
Adam Huggins 23:08
I just want to pause and say that these methods sound like they may not be legal under the UN Convention Against Torture, which I believe we are signatories to. Always have to double check with the United States and Canada [laughs].
[Jazz music return]
Tara Martin 23:21
And then where we have empirical data, data that's been collected through experiments or in the field, we-we bring that in as well. And so we're using, we're drawing on a combination of expert judgment and empirical knowledge to try and make the best possible decisions we can given the data we have right now.
[Old-school slide projector advance sound]
Collage of multiple archival voices 23:43
The most species for the least possible costs.
[Jazz music ends]
Adam Huggins 23:46
So this tool that Tara helped create is starting to be applied across the country. And you may have heard about it already. It's attracted a lot of press, including a feature in the Globe and Mail, which uh, for you, non-Canadian listeners is a big deal. I guess. It's been compared to the medical practice of triage, which assigns degrees of urgency to injuries or illnesses as a way to prioritize treatment in circumstances where there are, and I quote from the dictionary definition of triage, "a large number of patients or casualties".
[Sounds of a hospital waiting room]
Mendel Skulski 24:16
In other words, it's a waiting room in the extinction ward with hundreds of species at risk.
Tara Martin 24:22
Yeah, the, the term triage gets used frequently, and when it gets really challenging is where we have species that are really important to us. Southern mountain caribou, southern resident killer whales. Species which are on the brink, but are incredibly important, we value them hugely. And I think the key thing for a species like that is to identify what are the management actions that have the highest likelihood of recovery. And for those two cases, we've been focusing a lot on management actions that potentially aren't the most important actions.
Adam Huggins 25:04
And this is where Tara's work intersects with caribou. And where I want to pause for a moment. In the media, part of the reason Tara's work has received so much press is that it gets framed as a zero sum game. We might be able to save lots of species on one hand, but to do so we might have to give up on some really high profile and really expensive species, like burrowing owls, or orcas, or caribou. To me, this framing is an overly simplistic and misleading way to look at the issue, because it mistakes the tool itself for the decisions we make in response. It... leaves out our agency in this.
Tara Martin 25:45
I agree! it never says a species is too expensive. What it will highlight is where we don't have any management action that is going to recover the species. And so for southern mountain caribou and southern resident killer whales, what it would do would be identify are there management actions which have a likelihood of recovery in those species. They may be exceptionally expensive, but we may, as a society, be willing to pay that because they are so important to us.
Adam Huggins 26:16
So in the end, it's simply a tool that tells us how to prioritize our efforts given the resources we have. Last season in our episode about rare Manzanita's and the conservationists who love them, Dan Gluesenkamp, the Executive Director of the California Native Plant Society, made a really compelling argument for why we should invest more in conservation.
Dan Gluesenkamp 26:35
Anyone who says that we need to give up on trying to save species because it's been a failure just doesn't know the facts. The data are clear that we've been incredibly successful, even though we haven't invested in it. I think that with a small investment, an investment that really yields all kinds of special dividends, we can save everything.
Adam Huggins 26:50
And Tara agrees.
Tara Martin 26:52
When you look at the amount of money that is given to the environment, it’s a pittance compared to many, many other sectors. And, uh, and this has to change. I mean we derive all of our goods and services from these natural places as well as our mental well-being.
Mendel Skulski 27:12
Since the Priority Threat Management Framework is adjustable to the level of investment, the idea is that it can provide an ala carte menu of conservation choices that can deliver different levels of probability for the recovery of a given set of species. And if you value a species highly enough, if you're willing to pay the price, you can choose to do so in an informed manner. One management action that is currently being employed to slow or prevent the extinction of caribou herds is called Maternal Penning. That's what the West Moberly First Nation, one of the treaty eight First Nations in northeastern British Columbia, is doing to ensure that caribou are able to survive in their territory. We're gonna take a little detour with Sarah to take a closer look at their caribou penning project.
[Enchanting and mysterious music begins to play]
Sarah Cox 27:59
I was up in the Peace region in June 2015. And chief Roland Wilson from West Moberly First Nations extended an invitation to me and a few other people to go visit, uh, caribou penning project. And I had heard about this project and I was very intrigued and honored to receive that invitation. And so, along with biologists from Saulteau First Nations, we headed up for a day into the mountains. And it was really an incredible and memorable day to be heading up a mountain. Uh, bouncing along we saw links, uhm, getting higher and higher into the Alpine and, uhm, then the last little bit the bridge was washed out and we had to hike in the last little bit. And when we got to the top of the mountain, there was a-a pen, uh, with female caribou and their fairly newborn calves inside and two First Nation shepherds who were guarding the enclosure 24 hours a day, seven days a week, uhm, making sure that, uhm, no predators, mainly wolves, got into the pen and killed the caribou. Before the-the project started, there were only 16 animals left in the Klinse-Za herd. And, this penning project was an attempt by the First Nations to resuscitate that herd, to pull it back from-from the brink of local extinction.
Sarah Cox 29:34
And so, what they do is in the early part of the year, they use helicopters and they go out and they comb the landscape. Many of these animals are already radio collared, and they, ah, tranquilize the animal from the helicopter. They throw, use, what's called the net gun, which is basically casting a net over the animal. They jump out, a vet is always with them, the animal is sedated and then they basically go through a mini medical exam. They test the temperature of the animal. They need to make sure that it doesn't suffer from capture myopathy, which is a condition that will kill it. They bundle up the caribou. They put it in the helicopter, they take it to a staging area. By this point in time the animals hobbled and-and blindfolded and they take it by snowmobile the last distance. It's a very elaborate procedure. And the reason why the Nations decided to take matters into their own hands, and try to save these caribou herds in 2014, is because they had appealed to the BC government to do it before with what they consider to be a very insufficient response. And they could see that if they didn't do something that these herds too would become locally extinct. So they raised money. It's very expensive to save caribou one by one in this fashion. And, uhm, in this particular project, they've managed to, in the wild, uhm, about one out of three, uhm, caribou calves makes it to 10 months old, and what they've managed to do is they've managed to double that. So now about two out of three caribou calves, make it to the age of 10 months. And so they capture the pregnant females. They keep them until they give birth and then until the calves are strong enough to stand a chance in the wild.
[Forest sounds]
Sarah Cox 31:26
And so we basically very quietly went through the forest and climbed up a ladder to an observation platform and looked down into this beautiful Alpine meadow, and there were female caribou with their three week old calves. And it was really the most incredible sight. Oh, is the first time I've seen a caribou. And I was also, ah, keenly aware that I might never see these creatures completely in the wild.
[Enchanting instrumental music and birds chirping]
Adam Huggins 32:08
All of this is to say, this undertaking is a hugely expensive last ditch effort to prevent the dwindling herds from disappearing entirely. And it's working for now. But this is just one potential management action that a Priority Threat Management Framework would consider. It isn't a solution and it has a high cost. By the way, you might be wondering why West Moberly First Nation is going to such great lengths to protect mountain caribou from predators. Basically, Sarah explains...
Sarah Cox 32:37
As caribou habitat is destroyed, and as roads and seismic lines are-are built into these formerly very pristine areas, they're basically just like highways for the wolves. And as moose move in to browse in new clear cuts, the wolves follow them too.
Adam Huggins 32:55
And so on. A cascading chain reaction that leads to increased predation on the caribou just as their habitat is being degraded and their food disappearing.
Mendel Skulski 33:06
And so, the province of BC has been calling wolves. Over 500 and counting since 2015. In an effort to prevent the extinction of caribou herds, in practice, this means poisoning them and shooting them from helicopters. Now, setting aside the fact that some of the government's own scientists, not to mention many independent researchers admit that this practice is inhumane. It has been effective in reducing declines in some caribou herds. But culling, like penning, is expensive, invasive, and at best, a stopgap solution. There is broad agreement on this point, and at the risk of beating a dead wolf...
Sarah Cox 33:46
That is only a band aid solution. If we don't protect some of the caribous habitat enough for them to survive in the long term, then we're going to always be in this vicious cycle of having to-to kill wolves. Which ideally, nobody wants to have happen.
Tara Martin 34:02
Yet we have focused our investment in recent years on culling wolves and protecting females while they're calving from predation. But predation is really a secondary impact from loss of habitat. And so without significant habitat protection for southern mountain caribou, we are not going to recover caribou. It's very simple.
Trevor Goward 34:26
Almost all the emphasis is going to knocking out the predators. If we can just get rid of the predators, the caribou will be fine. There have been tremendous efforts, the cost of millions and millions of taxpayers dollars to, uhm for example, increase the number of moose that are killed, increase the numbers of deer that are killed, increase the number of-of wolves that are, there that are shot or poisoned or are otherwise, uh, exterminated. And now, and now cougar.
Adam Huggins 34:53
Right, we forgot to mention the deer, moose and cougar culls.
Trevor Goward 34:58
But it hasn't worked. All they've managed to do is to stop the caribou from declining further. But the thing that's been overlooked is if you keep cutting eventually you cause the caribou finally to starve, and that is inevitable.
[Enchanting music comes to an end]
Mendel Skulski 35:15
No old forests means predation and starvation. On this point, Sarah, Tara, and Trevor, all agree.
Adam Huggins 35:25
So that's priority thread management. But, as you might have guessed, this episode isn't really about how to make difficult conservation decisions.
Mendel Skulski 35:37
Ah. Are-are we just listing all the things this episode isn't about? Because it sure isn't about coral reefs or keystone species, or the Hardy Weinberg equilibrium either.
Adam Huggins 35:48
You're-you're right. It's-it's not about any of those things.
Mendel Skulski 35:52
Then, what is it about?
Adam Huggins 35:54
It's about what happens when you think you're standing at a crossroads, but in reality, You're already miles down the road in the wrong direction.
[Enchanting and mysterious music begins again and comes to a conclusion]
Adam Huggins 36:20
So far in this episode, we've been discussing the plight of the highly endangered Southern mountain caribou of British Columbia, which stems in large part from the destruction of their critical winter habitat, and lichen food source through clear cut logging. We've also discussed Priority Threat Management, which is a new decision making and resource allocation framework that's gaining popularity here in Canada. And which could help us make some difficult but necessary decisions if applied to caribou.
Mendel Skulski 36:47
But all of this assumes that our government wants to prevent the extinction of mountain caribou and that collectively, as a society, we're willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Remember, this is a species that was once widespread throughout British Columbia, so common that First Nations have described them as like bugs on the landscape. Their decline has been going on for over a century. A process driven by industry and sanctioned by government. And now that the caribou have been pushed so close to the edge, government is acting slowly, reluctantly, and in half measures.
Adam Huggins 37:22
And some of those hard choices a Priority Threat Management Framework might help us to make. Well, government has been making those on its own. And those choices continue to lead to the loss of herds. We're going to illustrate this with a story that begins with a seemingly random Facebook post. That, late one night this past January, just so happened to show up on Sarah Cox's feed.
[Instrumental shoegaze music begins]
Sarah Cox 37:46
It was a posting from Slocan Valley farmer called Jim Ross and he had a photograph of a trailer and a BC government truck in a gas station in Salmo. And a very poignant posting underneath that he said that he was on his way home and he pulled into the gas station, and ahead of him was what he said, was basically a convoy of BC government trucks and a stock trailer with plywood over the slots. And he was so intrigued that he, uh, went up and he started asking them "Well, what's in the trailer?" And he said he had, in this posting, he said he had to ask three times. He said, they were like deer in the headlights. They was like, they were on some secretive mission. But finally on the third attempt, he wrangled it out of them that it was caribou in the trailer, and that these were some of the last survivors of the South Selkirk and South Purcell herds.
Mendel Skulski 38:48
The South Selkirk and South Purcell herds were the last remaining herds in the southeastern corner of the province, at the very southern tip of the mountain caribous range. Sarah knew that these herds were dangerously close to disappearing. And so she followed up on the lead.
[Instrumental shoegaze music plays louder]
Sarah Cox 39:08
And, ah, Jim wrote that it was a sad day when the last surviving members of these herds could fit into a stock trailer with room to spare and that we were killing the planet slowly.
Adam Huggins 39:23
This is one of those moments when you realize that local extirpation is in some ways, no different from extinction for the community that it affects.
Sarah Cox 39:32
It is tremendously bleak. And Jim Ross talked to me about how sad he was that he had seen this herd over the years and had seen them, you know, by the side of the pass, and that he had daughters who were I think, in their late teens and early 20s, and that he was so sad that they were not going to be able to see caribou in the wild.
Adam Huggins 39:51
You might say that it's not the end of the world. There are other caribou herds but it is always the end of a world. For someone. Someplace. And in this case for the communities of the South Selkirks.
Mendel Skulski 40:07
It's so awful. To have witnessed the life and death of a herd. All in your lifetime.
[Music begins to fade]
Adam Huggins 40:13
I shudder to think what we'll witness in our lifetimes. But back to the story... I learned about the move from Sarah, and she was alerted to it by Jim. But the government had been planning for some time to capture these animals, and it made their plans known. Conservationists on the US side of the border had actually been advocating for it.
[Music ends]
Adam Huggins 40:30
Because the only thing worse than salvaging the last members of a herd would be to leave them to die out in the woods on their own. The thought was, and is, that eventually Canada can return the favor and work to reestablish these transboundary herds once caribou have stabilized in BC. After all, this is a migratory international species. And it's worth noting that groups and agencies in the US have worked hard to try to preserve it, and that at this point, they've done pretty much everything they can do. It's up to BC and the Government of Canada to act and they're obligated to do so. And as for the caribou...
Mendel Skulski 41:07
Where did they take them?
Adam Huggins 41:08
The females were relocated to a penning project near Revelstoke to try to supplement the North Columbia herd, which is in slightly better shape than the South Purcell and Selkirk herds where. It was a totally rational move. One that a Priority Threat Management Framework would have recommended. Still, it's a terrible outcome any way you look at it.
Mendel Skulski 41:29
We're doing what we can. With the money we've already allocated. But really, we're sidestepping a much deeper conversation.
Adam Huggins 41:37
Yeah! And-and this points to some of my misgivings about a tool like Priority Threat Management. Part of the reason it's gotten so much hype is that it's so easily assimilated into the way we already do things. It's an upgrade, not a course correction. And the way we do things is driving caribou to extinction. Without it, a deeper commitment. Efforts like these will always be reduced to a balance sheet. These animals. These herds. They have significance that extends way beyond their conservation status, especially to First Nations.
Sarah Cox 42:12
There's so much a link to their culture, in terms of practices on the land, in terms of hunting techniques, in terms of all the various things that-that caribou have been used for. And caribou kept First Nations communities alive in times of scarcity. They always knew they could go out and-and get a caribou. But when the numbers started to plummet in the Peace in the 1970s, the First Nations communities made a decision that they were not going to hunt caribou in that region until the numbers recovered. And that has not happened yet.
Adam Huggins 42:48
She's talking about a group of First Nations that includes West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations which started the pending project up in the Peace that we talked about earlier.
Sarah Cox 42:55
The efforts to which these First Nations communities are going to save caribou are absolutely incredible. I mean, they have people on the top of a mountain, in the middle of winter and howling winds, and sub-zero temperatures, guarding the caribou for days, ah, at a time with shift changes. Raising the money to be able to hire vets and to be able for pen materials and for food.
Adam Huggins 43:22
These communities have made huge sacrifices to ensure the survival of these herds. And the deepest sacrifice is that they can no longer hunt and utilize caribou to pass on that traditional knowledge in their own territory.
Sarah Cox 43:37
By reducing herds to the point where First Nations communities can't hunt and engage in traditional practices and go out and teach their children these traditional practices on their traditional land. Teach them their-their languages, which are deeply connected to the land, uhm, it has been described by Chief Roland Wilson, uhm, as a cultural genocide.
[Inquisitive music begins]
Mendel Skulski 44:08
Genocide, we've been hearing that word a lot lately, with reference to another recent story here in Canada, which was the release of the long awaited final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous women and Girls.
[Inquisitive music more upbeat]
Adam Huggins 44:26
Which for those of you outside of Canada, has been a years-long exhaustive investigation of the alarmingly high rates of violence inflicted upon Indigenous women, here in Canada, over the last century. Often with impunity. The report is detailed and it contains the testimony of hundreds of families and those who have lost loved ones. It puts forward a powerful set of calls to justice. But the second page of the executive summary begins with a definition of genocide. I quote, "a coordinated plan of different actions and at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves".
Mendel Skulski 45:12
Not surprisingly, this report set off a firestorm in Canada.
Media clip 45:17
[Unidentified speaker 1] And at the center of the star blanket is a caribou hide.
Media clip 45:21
[Unidentified speaker 2] The four commissioners of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls placed sacred objects into their final report and wrapped the report in a ceremonial blanket before handing it to the Canadian nation. The report's conclusion was unequivocal.
Media clip 45:37
[Unidentified speaker 1] This significant, persistent, and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered human and indigenous rights violations and abuses. And this is genocide. [Loud cheering and clapping]
Mendel Skulski 45:57
The word genocide doesn't usually receive thunderous applause. This acknowledgement didn't sit well with the Prime Minister.
Media clip 46:04
[Unidentified speaker 3] Genocide is a powerful word. One that those at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau hope to hear the Prime Minister acknowledge when it was his turn to speak...
Media clip 46:13
[Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau] These truths. Difficult. Challenging. And uncomfortable. [Someone interrupts, screaming "genocide"] This is an uncomfortable day.
Adam Huggins 46:30
If you couldn't tell from the clip, Trudeau's discomfort is palpable. And speaking of discomfort, Andrew Scheer, the head of the Conservative Party of Canada was unwilling to accept the report's key finding.
[Inquisitive music continues]
Media clip 46:43
[Andrew Scheer] Ah, the ramifications of-of the term genocide are very profound. They have a lot of ah that-that word and term carries a lot of meaning. I think that the tragedy involved with missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is its own thing. It is its own tragedy. It does not fall into that category of genocide.
Adam Huggins 46:59
So the reason that we're bringing all of this up is that, just like Trudeau, the idea of genocide makes many Canadians… uncomfortable.
[Inquisitive music more intense]
Adam Huggins 47:08
In history books, in popular culture, in politics... the violent removal and then steady erosion of indigenous rights, lands, and cultures, has been made out to be just as I phrased it in this very sentence. Passive. It's a crime without a perpetrator. Where the victimhood of the victim is simultaneously fetishized and dismissed. It's painfully clear that many Canadians wish we could just put this behind us. As an accident. A misunderstanding. Or, as Scheer said, a tragedy.
Mendel Skulski 47:45
But a deeper reading of the history reveals exactly what the report identifies: a coordinated, if not explicitly stated, program of disenfranchisement, dismissal, and ultimately, annihilation. Trudeau might not be willing to say it out right. But it's right there in the open. And even the Prime Minister has acquiesced to using the term cultural genocide. The same term that you'll remember, Chief Roland Wilson of the West Moberly First Nation used to describe the destruction of the caribou.
Adam Huggins 48:18
Just to be clear, we are not trying to make a direct comparison or imply that Indigenous women and girls are in any way akin to caribou. There are so many other systemic, racist and sexist issues at play. What we're trying to draw attention to, is that how we acknowledge both of these things, reveals the responsibility we take in actually doing something about them.
Trevor Goward 48:40
I-I for one can't bear the thought that-that we as Canadians are gonna let this happen. But our governments are-are knowingly pushing the caribou to extinction. And it means, I think the most important thing I'll say is that this is not an accident. The need of caribou for undisturbed old growth forests has been well known to caribou biologists for decades. But all that time the governments are-are just allowing it to disappear. They are, they triggered a larger outcome that has international significance. And that's coming home to roost right now.
Adam Huggins 49:17
If the sum total of a set of laws, policies and actions is the annihilation of a species, then does it matter that this was not their intent? Can we even assume that this was not their intent? Are we addressing the root causes or just performing protection? In this way, the politics of extinction in Canada resemble very closely the politics of genocide. A crime has been and is being committed... out in the open, but no one is willing to take the blame and the levers of justice just grind their gears, because the entire system itself is implicated. And at the forefront, our laws and the goverments execution, or non-execution of them.
Mendel Skulski 50:04
We're going to take one more left turn. And this is the last one, we promise, to illustrate this point.
Tara Martin 50:13
In Canada, we have the species at risk act called SARA. And in general, it has not been working as well as it-it could or should. And a lot of the reason for that is because there is so much discretion by the government to implement things or not.
Adam Huggins 50:33
What Tara means by discretion is that, for example, in Canada, the decision as to whether to list a species as at risk in the first place, is up to cabinet discretion. And ministers may choose to consider socio economic factors in their reasoning. This actually blew my mind when I first came here because our system in the States under the Endangered Species Act, leaves no room for this kind of discretion.
[Upbeat jazz music begins to play in the background]
Mendel Skulski 50:58
You call it discretion here. In Canada...
Adam Huggins 51:00
Hmm
Mendel Skulski 51:01
We like to think of it as trust.
Adam Huggins 51:03
And I trust the Prime Minister about as far as I could throw him. Back in the States, we, uh, prefer to sue one another. Call it what you like - trust, discretion - it isn't working. But the Species at Risk Act has an even bigger problem.
Tara Martin 51:16
A big part of its failure has been the bureaucracy of the process from the listing of a species, the development of a recovery strategy, that can take between five and six years it takes to develop the recovery strategy. That recovery strategy doesn't tell us anything about what to do to save the species. The next step is then to develop this action plan, which is supposed to spell out exactly the actions that we're supposed to take to recover the species. Well, that can take another five to six years. So we have a situation like for southern mountain caribou, where it's been 16 years since listing and we still don't have an action plan. And then we're producing these action plans which are simply a laundry list of a bunch of actions that are not prioritized. They assume we have all the resources to implement the plan. When we don't.
Adam Huggins 52:09
When you put it in these terms, it's impossible to justify a process that takes nearly two decades to even articulate an action plan to recover a species that needs protection yesterday. And this is at the federal level, pertaining only to federal lands, which are a tiny fraction of Canada. But it's all we have right now, because in British Columbia, there isn't any endangered species legislation. The current government promised to enact them, but they've since kicked that can down the road. At the risk of sounding slightly conspiratorial... there are powerful interests in Canada that will drive the caribou to extinction to protect their bottom line. Whether or not there's a cabal of bad actors in government is irrelevant.
Mendel Skulski 52:50
And even if there is a cabal, it's not the only thing standing in the way of a grand new approach to our shared territories.
Adam Huggins 52:58
What is clear is that the government hasn't been willing to stand up to these interests, at least not for long. This is BC Premier John Horgan
Media clip 53:07
[Premier John Horgan] And working together we can find ways forward that the West Moberly and Saulteaux have already been doing a good deal of work and...
Adam Huggins 53:15
In May the province of BC announced a plan in collaboration with West Moberly and Saulteaux First Nations to protect and recover caribou in the Peace
Media clip 53:22
[John Horgan] and we need to work together
Adam Huggins 53:24
Immediately there was allowed and in some cases, racist backlash throughout Northeastern BC from local communities and industry.
Media clip 53:30
[Speaker 1] We'll say it, because it's not politically correct. We're expanding the timber license for the natives. What is the deal with that? That's the elephant in the room.
Media clip 53:41
[Speaker 2] Chair Brad Sperling called for an end to the hateful and racist comments that he says have been directed towards the First Nations people. The derogatory comments first surfaced on various social media platforms.
Media clip 53:54
[Brad Sperling] And that's got to stop I mean, that's-that's number one. Never has been, never will be a reason for any kind of racism.
[Epic theatrical music]
Media clip 54:03
[Commercial voiceover] Once upon a time in a land very close to home, writers hunters, campers on trails did row. Then fences and signs appeared to shut the door. No one was allowed to ride on trails anymore. No dirt bikes, ATVs, side by sides on trails could be used. The environmentalists claimed that nature was abused. The government's goal was to close off the land. Now it's time for residents and trail users to take a stand.
[Soothing piano music]
Mendel Skulski 54:33
[Laughs] I think this guy got exactly the wrong message from the Lorax.
Adam Huggins 54:38
[Laughs] I mean, you joke but things got so bad that the agreement remains unsigned. Instead yet another report, the Lekstrom Report was drafted based on community consultation.
Mendel Skulski 54:52
Which predictably downplayed habitat protection in favor of continued penning and culling projects. Effectively, just kicking the can once again.
Adam Huggins 55:02
And instead of the plan we need we have a temporary two year moratorium on new resource development and caribou habitat in the Peace while community consultation continues, Any logging or development licenses already granted in the region will move ahead as planned. And that's only for the Peace, does absolutely nothing for the deep snow caribou that we've been talking about with Trevor.
[More upbeat jazzy piano muisc]
Mendel Skulski 55:25
There's a lot of money to be made in caribou country, from timber, minerals, gas and oil. extractive industry, subsidized by cheap leases on so called crown land is the foundation of BCs economy. While there may be many people in government who are working in good faith to protect caribou, for industry and government, it would be convenient if caribou just disappeared.
Adam Huggins 55:50
So what should we do if we want our children and grandchildren to have a chance to see caribou on the land? This is where the consensus amongst our interviewees breaks down. Not on the actions, but on what should drive our decision making. Tara has used Priority Threat Management to look at southern mountain caribou. And the prognosis for recovery is difficult, but not impossible. If we can be honest about it.
[Music ends]
Sarah Cox 56:17
As Tara puts it, in the case of caribou, some herds are sadly too far gone. And we may need to accept the fact that unless we do something absolutely drastic, they're going to go and where I think we've been very disingenuous, as a society, is not to say that. I mean, the government's never going to come out and issue a press release and say, Oh, we've decided that these herds; x, y and z herds are going to become extinct. They don't want that because there'll be a political backlash, but we're not being honest with ourselves. And I think we need to just come out and say that and we need to then turn our attention, and our money, to saving in the case of caribou, herds. And in the case of, you know, a species in general, the species that we can save. And we need to start doing that now because the trajectory that we're on is leading to more local extinctions and other extinctions.
Mendel Skulski 57:13
There's... been a habit in the press, to pit a pragmatic framework like Priority Threat Management, which implies making some sacrifices to achieve a greater good, in this case, species protection, against people like Trevor, who have dedicated themselves to the protection of an ecosystem, a species, a herd. Trevor acknowledges that good intentions behind Tara's work, but questions it's incorruptibility. Priority Threat Management presumes trustworthy data, and a lack of government interference. Trevor has been fighting for caribou for decades, and he's seen decision making tools like PTM be abused for political ends. For him, the only real way forward is a societal paradigm shift and our rapid end to roads and resource extraction in caribou habitat.
Adam Huggins 58:04
And having spoken with Tara, I'm sure she would agree. She just feels that Priority Threat Management might help get us there. And Trevor thinks that's the wrong direction. And in that way, it's just another crossroads.
Mendel Skulski 58:19
We're always at a crossroads. But we can't pretend it was the same one we were standing at five years ago, or that we can't see what we're walking towards. It's right in front of us.
Sarah Cox 58:30
We've been on this trajectory for-for decades and decades, the previous government didn't do anything to switch that up and the current government doesn't seem to be doing anything to switch that up either. Uhm, as soon as somebody starts to talk about maybe we're going to have, you know, more areas that are off limits to logging or old growth logging or mining development, there's a huge and very vocal backlash. And we're not very good right now in Canada and BC about sitting down and having these difficult discussions. Basically it boils down to do we want to say we're going to sanction the extinction of these caribou herds? Or do we want to do something about it? And scientists say there's-there's no more time to waste, that if we are going to do something about it we need to do it now.
[Enchanting organ music begins]
Adam Huggins 59:27
But this episode...
Mendel Skulski 59:31
Wait, don't tell me. This episode isn't about the species at risk act. And, it's not about lichens, or caribou, or Priority Threat Management either?
Adam Huggins 59:41
It contains elements of all these things. But I like to think, that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Mendel Skulski 59:48
[Laughs slightly] Cute lichen reference. So... what do you see? When you look at the whole picture? What emerges for you?
Adam Huggins 59:58
What emerges for me, from all of this, is a single question, and it's been eating away at me for months.
Adam Huggins 1:00:07
Let me see if I can articulate it.
Adam Huggins 1:00:11
It goes something like this...
Adam Huggins 1:00:13
Are we, collectively, willing to name what we are willing to lose? What if we've already lost it? And what happens if what we've lost turns out to be essential?
[Sombre music begins]
Mendel Skulski 1:00:40
That sounded a lot like three questions.
[Sombre music continues]
Mendel Skulski 1:00:56
We'll be back next month, on the first Wednesday. We've put so much work and love into season two, and we just know you're going to love it. So please... tell your close friends or anyone who you think might like what we do. Subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever podcasts can be found. It really helps us get the word out.
Adam Huggins 1:01:16
This episode of Future Ecologies was produced by myself, Adam Huggins.
Mendel Skulski 1:01:20
And me, Mendel Skulski.
Adam Huggins 1:01:22
In this episode, you heard Trevor Goward, Sarah Cox, and Dr. Tara Martin.
Mendel Skulski 1:01:28
This has been an independent production of Future Ecologies. Our second season is supported by our generous patrons. Just so you know, we're committed to keeping future ecologies ad free. If you'd like to help us make the show, you can support us on Patreon. Patrons get cool swag, and an exclusive bonus mini episode every month. Head to patreon.com/future ecologies.
Adam Huggins 1:01:49
You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and iNaturalist. The handle is always Future Ecologies. You can find a full list of musical credits, show notes, and links on our website, future ecologies.net.
Mendel Skulski 1:02:02
Thanks to Nicole Jahraus, Connor Fanning, Ilana Fonariov, and Cassy Allan for reviewing and improving this episode.
Adam Huggins 1:02:09
Special thanks to the Narwhal for sharing their excellent journalism, the Land Conservancy of British Columbia, Briony Penn, Fern Yip, Trevor Goward, Curtis Bjork, and, of course, Purple.
Mendel Skulski 1:02:22
Music in this episode was produced by Leucrocuta, Leave, Spencer W Stewart, Hildegard’s Ghost, and Sunfish Moon Light.
Adam Huggins 1:02:32
For those of you who've made it all the way through with us, thanks for listening. Here's a few other things that season two of Future Ecologies definitely is not about.
Speaker 1 1:02:44
So he said, I always started with humans and I always started with sex. And I had them then, they were just like, gripped. [Laughs] And then-then I'd finish with a Protozoa.
[Acoustic guitar theme]
Speaker 2 1:02:58
Yeah, I'm interested in Garbage. I-I find garbage fascinating and, you know, obviously, you know, on some level it's revolting but-but I'm fascinated by the layers, sort of palimpsest of-of kind of human existence.
Speaker 3 1:03:13
And I know my comparatives will tell you what it tastes like, but isn't necessarily going to help because I think it tastes like the lateral muscles in a sea cucumber.
Speaker 4 1:03:20
Dedicated hedonists need not apply.
Speaker 5 1:03:23
Maps lie. Maps that come out of sophisticated GISs lie. They persuade us that what we just mapped can be permanent.
Speaker 6 1:03:31
What we realized was that adults don't have really good imaginations.
Speaker 7 1:03:36
They dressed up as butterfly collectors and they were going up into the forest, into the mountains, and the police found them and-and asked them to open their bags and they were stuffed full of Matsutake.
Speaker 8 1:03:48
We represent a nation of people, not just now, but a nation of people from the past. And that nation of people that’s in the future. And so we're just a bridge for those folks.
Speaker 9 1:03:59
I want you to think this okay - Whatever you get is what you need. No more, no less.
[Music continues to a synthy conclusion]
Whispering Voiceover 1:04:28
Future Ecologies. A S M R.
Adam Huggins 1:04:32
Alright, celebratory fruit time. Today we are eating... a pomelo.
[Eating sounds]
Adam Huggins 1:04:49
Hmm, this is so good.
[Laughter and more eating sounds]
Mendel Skulski 1:04:53
Pomelo is my favorite citrus.
Adam Huggins 1:04:56
I'm more of a grapefruit person. But this is... really good.
[Eating sounds continue].
Adam Huggins 1:05:10
What do you do with like the flesh that's left behind?
Mendel Skulski 1:05:15
What flesh that’s left behind?
Adam Huggins 1:05:25
[Laughs] Looks, looks like a reptile molted.
Adam Huggins 1:05:27
[Laughs] Did you eat it?
Mendel Skulski 1:05:32
[Laughs] No, I’m just joking.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and edited by Nadia Croeser