And a new report has indicated that despite the looming deadline for a caribou recovery plan, exploratory drilling is continuing in the endangered animals’ habitat.
“The [drilling activity] database clearly shows that development continues on ranges that are already well past the 35 per cent disturbance level considered the maximum for caribou survival,” reported Global News.
Global spoke with Mark Hebblewhite, a biologist at University of Montana, who obtained and analyzed drilling activity across North America.
“Alberta’s policy conflict is clearly one between unrestricted energy development and whether or not we actually want to pay for it,” Hebblewhite told Global. “The federal and Alberta government are really going to have to figure out how to resolve this.”
The most recent action taken by the provincial government to protect the caribou is to kill hundreds of wolves – a plan that most scientists have said won’t work at all in the long-term.
And restoring the habitat – worth hundreds of millions of dollars – may not be an option for long.
“It is absolutely unrealistic to think we can save all of them if we continue doing things the way we do. We just can’t,” said Hebblewhite.
Please, for the sake of the animals, get out and vote in Alberta on May 5. The world is watching.
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