The four herd areas managed by this RIG include the Chase, Wolverine, Takla, and Scott herds:
Map A
In British Columbia, all caribou herds located within the Southern Mountains National Ecological Area (northern boundary of which is shown in yellow above) are considered “threatened” by the Council on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.
In Map A above, all relocations of radio-collared caribou were enclosed using boundaries based on identifiable topographical features such as major rivers or valleys. More than 70,000 relocations of radio-collared caribou were observed from 1996 to 2005. These boundaries represent the herd areas.
Map B
Four recovery planning areas (Map B) were delineated by encompassing the historic and current range use by caribou (Map A) but allowing for spatial connectivity among herds. This was accomplished by following boundaries of Landscape Planning Units.
As part of the recovery planning process, range maps were constructed to delineate specific locations within the planning areas that held high habitat value within specific seasons (pine-lichen winter range, post-rut range, high-elevation winter range, calving and summer range).
Stewardship of the habitat in these ranges has in part been enabled by implementation of forest legislation which allows for conservation of habitat which provides for the overwinter survival of ungulates.
