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Canadian province to set aside caribou lands
"We think that will provide a long-term, sustainable number,"
- Pat Bell, the province's minister of agriculture and lands
Calgary, Alberta - British Columbia on Tuesday said it will set aside hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth forest in order to boost the Canadian province's dwindling mountain caribou herds. The province said it will add 865,000 acres of protected lands. That will bring the total area of lands where logging and road building will be prohibited to 8,500 square miles, an area nearly the size of New Jersey that covers 95 percent of the animals' range in the province.
The province said it will add 865,000 acres of protected lands. That will bring the total area of lands where logging and road building will be prohibited to 8,500 square miles, an area nearly the size of New Jersey that covers 95 percent of the animals' range in the province.
The province hopes the move will boost the caribou population from a current 1,900 animals in 12 herds to about 2,500, where it stood in 1995.
"We think that will provide a long-term, sustainable number," Pat Bell, the province's minister of agriculture and lands, said on a conference call.