Caribou arrive on their own to Nakusp maternity pen in first for program<\/p>\n
Published 1:22 pm Tuesday, April 7, 2026<\/p>\n
Nine caribou will spend spring in the safety of Nakusp\u2019s maternity pen for the program\u2019s fifth year running \u2014 though they weren\u2019t the only ones to visit this time.<\/p>\n
The Arrow Lakes Caribou Society (ALCS) announced Thursday, April 2, that these southern mountain caribou, part of the Central Selkirks herd and a federally threatened species, were captured March 27 from three sites northeast of Nakusp.<\/p>\n
They included six adult cows, a two-year-old female, a 10-month-old female calf and a 10-month-old male calf. The adults have had previous stays in the Central Selkirk Caribou Maternity Pen, while the two calves were born there last year.<\/p>\n
READ: Feds sued as Wildsight calls for protection of Columbia Mountain caribou range<\/a><\/p>\n Involved in gathering this year\u2019s maternity pen caribou were three helicopters, three trucks and 38 personnel spanning ALCS volunteers, wildlife biologists and veterinarians, provincial government staff, members of the Sinixt Confederacy and Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and local stakeholders.<\/p>\n After the caribou arrived to the pen March 27, veterinarians collected health samples and other data to gauge how many of the cows are pregnant.<\/p>\n This year, however, the organizers were in for a special surprise from nature.<\/p>\n On March 23, well before capture operations started, four adult male and two adult female caribou descended from higher elevations in the Selkirk Mountains right to the vicinity of the pen. The manager, surprised by their visit, opened the gate and put out feed.<\/p>\n \u201cBy early afternoon, the six animals made their way into the pen,\u201d ALCS wrote. \u201cThis is the first time caribou have moved unaided from their late winter range to the maternity pen.\u201d<\/p>\n Above all, the pen ensures pregnant cows have safe refuge from predators such as wolverines, cougars, wolves and grizzlies during calving season, when they\u2019re most vulnerable in the wild.<\/p>\n This also gives calves higher chances of survival, while providing the caribou with a high-nutrition diet that improves their health and body condition for making it through harsh winters. Each year, that depends on volunteers collecting roughly 300 kilograms of arboreal lichen around Revelstoke and Nakusp to sustain the animals.<\/p>\n These caribou will remain in the pen for calving through May and June, until the internal temperature and other factors prompt their release back into the Selkirks sometime in late July.<\/p>\n Disturbance around the pen will be minimized over the coming months by limiting traffic farther up Kuskanax Forest Service Road, which runs off Hot Springs Road.<\/p>\n