Right now, thousands of hectares of B.C.’s Inland Temperate Rainforest are slated for logging, including over 600 hectares in the Seymour River watershed — core habitat for the Columbia North herd.
The Columbia North herd is the last of B.C.’s southernmost caribou herds left with a shot at a long-term future. Over the last two decades, seven other herd’s between it and the U.S. border have disappeared as we’ve clearcut and fragmented their mountain homes.
The unique, deep-snow dwelling caribou found in this region have evolved in tandem with the old forests of the Inland Temperate Rainforest. Their survival — and that of this globally threatened ecosystem — are inextricably linked.
In the Inland Temperate Rainforest, horsehair and witch’s hair lichens cling to ancient trees that are watered by year-round rain and the constant trickling of melting snow. Those lichens provide just enough sustenance for mountain caribou to survive the cold days of deep winter; their stomachs even carry special bacteria to digest them.
If we don’t protect the last remaining old stands of Inland Temperate Rainforest, like those in the Seymour River watershed, our southernmost caribou will be lost forever. Will you give today to help defend these forests and give B.C.’s southernmost caribou a fighting chance?
