The caribou in the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen were released on July 16, 2024. Nine adult cows and one yearling female have been kept in the pen since capture in March 2024. Five calves (four males and one female) were born between May and July.
Upon release this year, ALCS observed the caribou taking a similar route to last year. The caribou quickly travelled up to the top of Raven Creek and were in the subalpine within a couple of hours. The caribou are remaining in the area above Raven Creek and Heart Lake.
The purpose of the maternity pen is to increase calf survival and decrease environmental pressures, such as predators, to cows and calves during calving and after when the calves are less than six weeks old.
ALCS monitors the cows and calves in the pen and feeds them a high nutrition diet so that when they are released, they have the best chances possible to escape predation and find their way back up into the alpine until breeding season in the fall.
The caribou are ideally released six weeks after the last calf is born, which allows calves to mature to keep up with the rest of the herd in their natural habitat. This year, the youngest calf was five weeks old at the time of release. However, the large size and fitness of the youngest calf and the sustained high environmental temperatures were the deciding factors in choosing an early release date.
Caribou were closely monitored by maternity pen shepherds from a specialty-built observation blind. Shepherds this year included two individual contractors/ biology students, Sinixt Confederacy Fish and Wildlife Representatives, and a member of the Lower Similkameen Band.
There is a controlled access zone on Kuskanax Forest Service Road around the maternity pen, starting 600 metres up from Hot Springs Road. The road and gate are now open to the public for access to the Kuskanax drainage as per instructions on the gate signage and under the direction of ALCS and the BC Caribou Recovery Program.
Thank you to the community and local stakeholder groups for supporting this project.
Arrow Lakes Caribou Society 