Can Killing Moose help Caribou? A recent study conducted by researchers in British Columbia's Columbia Mountain range is raising eyebrows for its novel approach to trying to help struggling caribou populations in several endangered herds throughout several areas. Over the past few years, programs focused on killing wolves in many areas concentrated on reducing predation of already declining herds of caribou in Alberta and British Columbia. These herds have been in decline for a long time. Much of that decline has been the result of previous interventions that created the current situation. Caribou are animals of deep snowpacks and dense old-growth forests. Their traditional ranges were not an area where heavy wolf predation took place. The deep snows were a disadvantage to the wolves who rarely trekked into the caribou's home range. Unfortunately for the Caribou, decades of extensive logging of old-growth forests, along with the roads that come with them, followed by snowmobile and atv adoption of these same roads, provided easy access into their home ranges. At the same time, moose thrive on clearcuts where the new growth is just what they need to survive. Moose moved into the area in ever increasing numbers. The moose were aided in their population boom by the simple fact that wolves had bounties on their heads from 1906-1962 throughout British Columbia. Without a strong predator presence, the moose population exploded to many times their historic levels. With tonnes of moose, and an end to predator control, the wolf population moved in and began to prey heavily on moose. All of these developments created a situation where logging opened an area to moose, followed by wolves being attracted by those moose, and in turn giving the wolves access to another tasty prey; caribou. This is a story that is repeated in almost every caribou herd in the mountain west. As a result, almost every caribou herd in the mountain regions of Alberta and British Columbia is in serious decline with some on the verge of disappearing. When a classic predator prey interaction, like moose and wolves, ensnares a third party, we refer to that as incidental competition. Essentially, if the moose weren't there, the caribou would not likely be bothered by the wolves simply because they don't occur in dense enough populations to support wolf packs. They also live in areas that are difficult for the wolves to access. Wolf culls are a controversial practice, but are being used in Alberta and British Columbia to try to help struggling caribou herds. The mantra has been kill the wolves and the caribou can survive. This mantra has been repeated over and over by politicians convinced that it is the only way to keep caribou herds in the wild. We have to remember, that without the developments that provided access for wolves to get to the caribou, the problem may not have occurred in the first place. Alberta in particular, is still allowing more oil and gas exploration in critical caribou habitat, putting in more roads to allow wolves into caribou territory. Any plan that focuses only on killing predators but doesn't prioritize habitat protection and restoration is not likely to succeed. In this particular study, scientists wanted to take a different approach to caribou conservation. Step one is to either reduce or halt logging in caribou home ranges to reduce the opportunities for white-tail deer and moose to move in and drag their canine predators with them. Caribou do not benefit from logging. They rely on the hanging, stringy lichens that dangle from the foliage of old growth trees and these are not found in clearcuts. At this point, just stopping logging will not help the caribou on the short-term. It will take decades for today's clearcuts to regrow into dense forests more amenable to caribou instead of moose and deer. Biologists decided to tr