The Porcupine caribou ''(Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus'') is a herd or ecotype of barren-ground caribou, the
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
of the
reindeer
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
or caribou found in
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, United States, and
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
and the
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. A recent revision changes the Latin name; see Taxonomy.
Migratory caribou herds are named after their calving grounds, in this case the
Porcupine River
The Porcupine River (''Ch’ôonjik'' in Gwich’in) is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada and the United States. It rises in the Ogilvie Mountains north of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. From there it flows north through the community of ...
, which runs through a large part of the range of the Porcupine herd. Though numbers fluctuate, the herd comprises about 218,000 animals (based on a July 2017 photocensus).
They migrate over a year between their winter range and calving grounds at the
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
, the longest land migration route of any land mammal on Earth. Their range spans the Alaska-Yukon border and is a valued resource cooperatively managed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Canadian wildlife agencies and local
aboriginal peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
. The caribou are the primary sustenance of the
Gwichʼin, a
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
/
Alaska Native
Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
people, who traditionally built their communities to align with the caribou's migration patterns. They are also routinely hunted by other indigenous peoples, including the
Inupiat, the
Inuvialuit
The Inuvialuit (sing. Inuvialuk; ''the real people'') or Western Canadian Inuit are Inuit who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They, like all other Inuit, are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska. Their homelan ...
, the
Hän
The Hän, Han or Hwëch'in / Han Hwech’in (meaning "People of the River, i.e. Yukon River", in English also Hankutchin) are a First Nations people of Canada and an Alaska Native Athabaskan people of the United States; they are part of the At ...
and the
Northern Tutchone
The Northern Tutchone are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in the central Yukon in Canada.
Language and culture
The Northern Tutchone language, originally spoken by the Northern Tutchone p ...
.
By July 2017, the Porcupine herd had reached a record high of about 202,000 to 235,000 animals. Sixteen years earlier, in 2001 the same herd was only half as large. While other barren-ground caribou herds have declined by 90%, the Porcupine herd has remained relatively stable.
Taxonomy
The Porcupine caribou, is a herd of the barren-ground
caribou
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
found in
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, United States, and
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
and the
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It is included in the subspecies called the
barren-ground caribou
The barren-ground caribou (''Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus''; but subject to a recent taxonomic revision. See Reindeer: Taxomony.) is a subspecies of the reindeer (or the caribou in North America) that is found in the Canadian territories of Nu ...
(''R. tarandus groenlandicus'').
The Porcupine caribou was first named ''Rangifer ogilviensis'' Millais, 1915 after the Ogilvie Mountains, part of its Yukon winter range. It has also been known as Grant's caribou (''R. a. granti;'' subsequently ''R. t. granti'').
Grant's caribou was described as a small, pale form occupying a limited range at the west end of the Alaska Peninsula and nearby islands. Originally described as ''Rangifer granti'' (Allen, 1902), it was brought under barren-ground caribou as ''R. arcticus granti'' because its size and form were closer to the barren-ground type than to the larger, darker montane forms in Alaska. When Banfield revised the ''Rangifer'' genus, bringing all reindeer and caribou under ''Rangifer tarandus'', he gave the subspecies name ''granti'' to all the caribou in Alaska and some in Yukon, thus greatly expanding its range. Subsequently, taxonomists comparing Alaskan or Yukon migratory barren-ground caribou with those of mainland Canada labelled their Alaska/Yukon samples as ''R. t. granti''. Youngman (1975) re-assigned it to Canada/Alaska barren-ground caribou, ''R. tarandus groenlandicus'' after Banfield's (1961) name change. Because Geist (1998), and others, could find no morphological features to distinguish Alaskan from Canadian barren-ground caribou, ''granti'' was not accepted in the authoritative reference work, ''Mammalian Species of the World'' (Grubb, ''Artiodactyla'' in Wilson and Reeder 2005)
and its replacement, ''Handbook of the mammals of the World'' (Mattioli, ''Cervidae'', in Wilson and Mittermeier 2011). Caribou geneticists agree that Alaska/Yukon migratory barren-ground and Canadian barren-ground caribou are barely distinguishable (e.g., Cronin et al. 2005; Yannic et al. 2013). Further history of the name ''granti'' is given in
Reindeer
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
.
In a stunning sequel, caribou geneticists discovered that caribou still living at the western end of the Alaskan Peninsula and nearby islands--which contains the type locality of ''Rangifer granti'' Allen 1902--are genetically distinct from, and do not interbreed with, nearby forms of caribou. Its range encompasses the type locality designated by Allen 1902. Thus, ''R. a. granti'' was rediscovered in its original, limited range and its type species in the American Museum of Natural History remains valid.
A recent revision (see
Reindeer
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
: Taxonomy) returns the Porcupine and other herds of barren-ground caribou to ''R. arcticus arcticus'' Richardson 1829.
Range
![Anwrmap](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Anwrmap.jpg)
The Porcupine herd range covers , from the calving grounds, the
Porcupine River
The Porcupine River (''Ch’ôonjik'' in Gwich’in) is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada and the United States. It rises in the Ogilvie Mountains north of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. From there it flows north through the community of ...
after which they are named, to "the river valleys and slopes in the Ogilvie and Richardson Mountains in the Yukon and the southern Brooks Range in Alaska."
The calving area is located on in the
Porcupine River
The Porcupine River (''Ch’ôonjik'' in Gwich’in) is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada and the United States. It rises in the Ogilvie Mountains north of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. From there it flows north through the community of ...
coastal region of the
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
known as the 1002 area, which is part of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR or Arctic Refuge) is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States on traditional Gwich'in lands. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest national wildli ...
.
The area runs through a large part of the range of the Porcupine herd.
In the spring the pregnant cows move "northeast from the Alaskan winter ranges or north and northwest from the Canadian winter ranges. If snowmelt is early, they will then move westward along the north slope of the Brooks Range into Alaska."
![Caribou calving map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Caribou_calving_map.jpg)
Most Porcupine caribou calves are born in the first week of June and they are at their most vulnerable from their primary predators on the calving ground—golden eagles, grizzly bears and wolves—during the first three weeks when they are dependent on milk from their mothers. About one quarter of them die during this period.
Their annual land migration between their winter range in the boreal forests of Alaska and Yukon over the mountains to the coastal plain and their calving grounds on the
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
coastal plain,
is the longest of any land mammal on earth.
Management
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Canadian wildlife agencies, and local
aboriginal peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
cooperatively manage the Porcupine herd. The Porcupine Caribou Management Board (PCMB) advisory board was established under the Porcupine Caribou Management Agreement in 1985, whose members include representatives from the Gwich'in Tribal Council, Na-cho Nyäk Dün, Vuntut Gwitchin, Government of Yukon, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, Inuvialuit Game Council, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada. The PCMB publish an annual Porcupine Caribou Harvest Report.
In their February 2018 report they recorded that a 2017 photocensus (survey) estimated a mean of 218,457 caribou (95% CI = 202,106 to 234,808) caribou, indicative of an increasing trend from 2010 to 2017, from 169,000 to about 218,000.
On July 17, 1987, the United States and the Canadian governments signed the "Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd," a treaty designed to protect the subspecies from damage to its habitat and migration routes.
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
.
Agreement Between the Government of the United States and the government of Canada on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd
' New York: UNU. 198
/ref> Both the Ivvavik National Park
Ivvavik National Park ( ) is a national park of Canada located in Yukon. Initially named "Northern Yukon National Park," the park was renamed Ivvavik in 1992 for the Inuvialuktun word meaning "nursery" or "birthplace," in reference to the import ...
and Vuntut National Park border the ANWR. The treaty required an impact assessment and required that where activity in one country is "likely to cause significant long-term adverse impact on the Porcupine Caribou Herd or its habitat, the other Party will be notified and given an opportunity to consult prior to final decision". This focus on the Porcupine caribou led to the animal becoming a visual rhetoric or symbol of the drilling issue much in the same way the polar bear
The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear specie ...
has become the symbol of global warming.
Herd size
Unlike many other ''Rangifer'' species, subspecies and their ecotypes, the Porcupine herd is stable at relatively high numbers. Some barren-ground caribou herds have "declined more than 90 per cent from historic averages", causing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC, French: Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, COSEPAC) is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d'être is to identify s ...
(COSEWIC), to sound the alarm.
According to an aerial count reported in July 2017, the size of the Porcupine herd had increased to "between 202,000 and 235,000 animals, nearly twice the number of animals recorded at a low point in 2001.
A previous peak population occurred in 1989 with 178,000 animals and was followed by a decline by 2001 to 123,000. A recovery was observed in 2010 with an increase to 169,000 animals.
Potential threats to the Porcupine herd
Climate change and the increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as unprecedented late slow melting, negatively affect the Porcupine herd. As a result there was "very high early calf mortality." The primary predators for calves are golden eagles, grizzly bears and wolves.[ This report includes detailed maps of the region.] "Caribou exposed to industrial development shift away from the pipelines and roads." The passage of the provision opening ANWR's 1002 to oil and gas drilling is considered to be a threat. In 2001, some biologists feared development in the Refuge would "push caribou into the foothills, where calves would be more prone to predation." In their 2005 report, Russell and McNeil reiterated concerns that new calving areas would make the herd more vulnerable, as area 1002 provides a much higher quality of diet conditions than the alternatives in Canada.
Indigenous peoples
The Porcupine caribou are a valued resource as primary sustenance to indigenous peoples in Alaska and northern Canada. Gwichʼin, a First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
/Alaska Native
Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
people traditionally built their communities to align with the caribou's migration patterns. The Inupiat, the Inuvialuit
The Inuvialuit (sing. Inuvialuk; ''the real people'') or Western Canadian Inuit are Inuit who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They, like all other Inuit, are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska. Their homelan ...
, the Hän
The Hän, Han or Hwëch'in / Han Hwech’in (meaning "People of the River, i.e. Yukon River", in English also Hankutchin) are a First Nations people of Canada and an Alaska Native Athabaskan people of the United States; they are part of the At ...
and the Northern Tutchone
The Northern Tutchone are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in the central Yukon in Canada.
Language and culture
The Northern Tutchone language, originally spoken by the Northern Tutchone p ...
also hunt caribou from this herd on a regular basis.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) covers of the northern Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
n coast, in northeast Alaska between the Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
to the north, Brooks Range
The Brooks Range ( Gwich'in: ''Gwazhał'') is a mountain range in far northern North America stretching some from west to east across northern Alaska into Canada's Yukon Territory. Reaching a peak elevation of on Mount Isto, the range is belie ...
to the south and Prudhoe Bay
Prudhoe Bay is a census-designated place (CDP) located in North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 2,174 people, up from just five residents in the 2000 census; however, at any give ...
to the west. It is the largest protected
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...
wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
in the United States and was created by Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over of land, including national parks, n ...
of 1980.
On December 22, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
The Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018, , is a congressional revenue act of the United States originally introduced in Congress as the Tax Cuts and Jobs A ...
, a provision that opened the 1002 area of ANWR to oil and gas drilling, into law. The Act contains provisions that would open 1.5million acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR or Arctic Refuge) is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States on traditional Gwich'in lands. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest national wildli ...
to oil and gas drilling. Opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling "unleashed a torrent of opposition from conservationists and scientists." Democrats[Scott Detrow]
Senate May Approve Drilling In Alaskan Wilderness With Tax Bill
NPR (November 18, 2017). and environmentalist groups such as the Wilderness Society criticized the Republican effort. Since 1977 area 1002, which encompasses much of the Porcupine caribou calving grounds, has been a topic of controversy. The subsection on the coastal plain, known as the "1002 area" is located between the Brooks Range
The Brooks Range ( Gwich'in: ''Gwazhał'') is a mountain range in far northern North America stretching some from west to east across northern Alaska into Canada's Yukon Territory. Reaching a peak elevation of on Mount Isto, the range is belie ...
and the Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
. The plain "stretches west from the Yukon border more than a hundred miles, a flat expanse of tundra laced with tussock wetlands and braided rivers."
Ivvavik National Park
Ivvavik National Park
Ivvavik National Park ( ) is a national park of Canada located in Yukon. Initially named "Northern Yukon National Park," the park was renamed Ivvavik in 1992 for the Inuvialuktun word meaning "nursery" or "birthplace," in reference to the import ...
protects a portion of the calving grounds of the Porcupine herd and restricts the number of people who may visit annually. During the calving in May, caribou are at their most vulnerable. Caribou management calls for preservation of calving grounds. Large portions of the calving grounds have been protected in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR or Arctic Refuge) is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States on traditional Gwich'in lands. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest national wildli ...
in Alaska, United States, and Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park in Yukon, Canada.
Central Arctic caribou herd
In 2001, proponents of the development of the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk, which would be approximately west of the refuge, argued that the Central Arctic caribou herd had increased its numbers "in spite of several hundred miles of gravel roads and more than a thousand miles of elevated pipe." However, the Central Arctic herd is much smaller than the Porcupine herd and has a range that is much larger.
See also
* Arctic Refuge drilling controversy
The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977. As of 2017, Republicans have attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost fifty time ...
* '' Being Caribou''
* Caribou herds and populations in Canada
* Jonathon Solomon
* Reindeer distribution
References
External links
Porcupine Caribou Management Board
Watch ''Being Caribou'' at NFB.ca
{{Taxonbar, from=Q786652
Reindeer
Articles containing video clips