'It was frickin' epic'
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- Published on Thursday, 24 January 2019 08:02
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“I got home and I thought ‘man, this is frickin’ epic. I should post this.’""So I did.”
That's what Slocan valley farmer Jim Ross told our reporter Sarah Cox when she reached out to discuss Ross' very intriguing Facebook post.
In that post, Ross described stumbling across a secretive government convoy as he stopped for gas last week in Salmo, B.C. The convoy's cargo obviously contained a trailer of animals but Ross couldn't quite see what they were. He inquired.
“They all looked like deer in the headlights and behaved like they were on some secret mission,” Ross wrote. “When I wouldn’t stop pressing, the driver told me they were caribou.”
Following up on what Ross had witnessed, Sarah discovered B.C. was quietly removing the last female caribou from the South Selkirk and South Purcell herds — rendering them both functionally extinct.
The caribou had been tracked by helicopter that morning, captured with net guns, blindfolded and hobbled, sedated, flown to staging areas and loaded into the trailer as part of an elaborate government rescue mission that cost between $20,000 and $30,000.Although the hope for the extracted animals is that they will join the Columbia North caribou herd, the disappearance of two of B.C.'s Kootenay populations — that have existed on the landscape for thousands of years — wasn't lost on Ross.
“It just saddens the hell of me,” Ross told Sarah. “I have two daughters who are 19 and 21 and they’re never going to see a caribou.”
Sarah's scoop meant The Narwhal reported the caribou relocation a full five days before the province even issued a press release on the operation.
It's a sign of how closely Sarah works the species at risk beat in B.C. — a difficult but increasingly important task, especially as the province of B.C. continues to permit logging operations in the critical habitat of endangered species, including the spotted owl.
A tough story to tell and we're glad Sarah's the one telling it.
As always, we have more for you this week including an in-depth piece on the eye-widening controversy over Alberta's plan to protect Bighorn Country. Please read on!
Carol Linnitt
Managing editor, The Narwhal Big thanks again to Pacific Wild for sharing our story and connecting it to B.C.'s ongoing wolf cull.
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Sharon's story on the Bighorn features backcountry photos from the talented Darwin Wiggett. See the photos.
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