Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 74: Santa's Reindeer w/ Bruce Ranta
Discover the intricate world of caribou conservation with renowned retired biologist Bruce Ranta, as he shares his wealth of knowledge and experience from the picturesque Kenora, Ontario. Bruce unravels the complexities of caribou population dynamics, touching on the delicate interplay between their reliance on slow-growing lichens and the impacts of human activities and natural predators. It's a fascinating look into the challenges of managing these majestic creatures across vast landscapes, with insights drawn from real-life experiences, including the unpredictable nature of caribou hunting in Alaska.
We journey into the heart of Ontario's wilderness to explore the unique circumstances of caribou herds on Slate and Michipicoten Islands. Learn about the environmental hurdles and predator threats these isolated populations face, as well as the ongoing research and conservation efforts aimed at preserving their delicate ecosystems. Along the way, hear how Bill, a 71-year-old blood donor, found surprising health benefits in chaga tea, leading him to manage his blood pressure without medication. These stories highlight the resilience and adaptability of both humans and wildlife in their shared environments.
As we wrap up this enriching episode, a festive spirit fills the air with a touch of holiday cheer. We joyously discuss Santa's reindeer and the regulations around them in Canada while expressing our gratitude to Bruce for his invaluable contributions.
Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
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Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world.
Speaker 3:On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy Under the Canopy, okay. Thanks everyone for listening. As always, all those listeners across Canada and the States and those in Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago and Ghana and everywhere else that we're getting, really appreciate all your support and, as usual, anybody has any questions or wants any more information or like to see a podcast about something, give us an email, let us know. We'll be more than happy to try and fill what we can Now. Today we've got a special guest, a guy that looks like Santa. He's Bruce Ranta. He's a retired biologist for the Ministry of Natural Resources and he's got some expertise in something we want to talk about reindeer and or caribou. Welcome to the program, bruce.
Speaker 4:Hi Jerry, it's Santa with an R.
Speaker 3:Santa with an R? I never thought about that. Yes, actually. Yeah, that's very good. So, bruce, just kind of tell everybody, just remind everybody whereabouts you are in the province, bruce everybody.
Speaker 4:Just remind everybody whereabouts you are in the province. Bruce, I'm in Kenora, ontario, which is the furthest west that you can go and be in a city in the province of Ontario before you get to the Manitoba border.
Speaker 3:So are you right in Kenora or are you outside Kenora?
Speaker 4:Well, I live in the city of Kenora, but Kenora is typical of a lot of northern Ontario cities. These days the boundary of the city extends well into the countryside, so I live on 232 acres of forest, mostly a little bit of field, and I'm surrounded by forest. So I live in the woods, but I'm technically within the city limits.
Speaker 3:Now what's the big lake there. So people know Now what's the big lake there.
Speaker 4:So people know the big lake that I'm just north of and that the city of Kenora is actually on the shores of, is Lake of the Woods. It's a huge lake. I think. It has 13,000 islands in it 13, how many islands, I think it's something like 13,000.
Speaker 3:13,000 islands on the lake, yeah, on Lake of the Woods. I had no idea there was that many.
Speaker 4:It's a huge lake. It's about 60 miles long and about 40 miles wide, so about 100 kilometers by 60 some kilometers.
Speaker 3:That's huge. That's huge. I really didn't realize that was that large. I knew there was quite a bit. And an interesting story about Kenora and myself was I was invited up to do a speech to NODA, which is Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters.
Speaker 3:At the time it was in Kenora and it was in October and I left here, oshawa, just east of Toronto. I left, went to the Toronto airport and the weather's beautiful down here. I mean, we're talking no jacket, basically running shoes kind of thing, and we had to stop in Thunder Bay and Thunder Bay the people there informed me well, mr Ouellette, we lost your luggage. We can't find it, but it could be in Kenora, it could have gone, sent through already. So from Thunder Bay I had to jump on Bearskin Airlines, which is every seat's an aisle seat, every seat's a window seat. It was like a beach 19. Every seat's an aisle seat, every seat's a window seat. It was like a beach 19.
Speaker 3:And we phone well, we get to Fort Francis first. We're doing a drop off in Fort Francis. So we're heading west, we take off at Fort Francis and we hit a front of some kind and the plane turned perfectly sideways and I'm sitting in my seat looking down at the person beside me and she is in an absolute panic, just white-knuckling there trying to get it out. So we land in Kenora and I get out of the plane and no luggage, and it's a snowstorm. A snowstorm, it's a huge snowstorm, that is I don't know how many, probably six, eight inches of snow at the time. And so I get out and I've got basically running shoes on and go into the hotel, no luggage at all. Again, still couldn't find it anyways. So here I am, no winter coat, no, nothing in a complete weather change that I was totally unaware of, prepared for Interesting time.
Speaker 3:But I made the speech. Um, we had, uh, it's, it's a good group of people, a lot of bush pilots there at this, uh, northern Ontario tourist outfitters, cause they, they represent all the uh, uh, the tourist outfitters in Northern Ontario. And, anyways, they said I wouldn't fly in this weather. And I knew why, because when the plane turned sideways it was like shocking. But it was a good experience, great spot to be, great part of the province, kenora, and a lot of nice things happen up there. They got a big fish turnip up there, I believe, do they not?
Speaker 4:They have a big tournament on Lake of the Woods, a bass tournament, and also one on Rainy Lake, which is almost as big as Lake of the Woods in the Fort Francis district it borders. Half the lake is in the US, just like Lake of the Woods. A sizable portion of it is also in the US and that's a big bass tournament on Raining Lake too. So there's two. I mean there's a number of smaller ones, but there's two very large bass tournaments on those two lakes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's certainly an interesting part of the province, the most western part of, like you said, city before you hit Manitoba. But, bruce, we want to talk a bit about reindeer and caribou, because you've got some expertise in those areas. Maybe you can just give us a bit of what's the difference between a reindeer and a caribou.
Speaker 4:A reindeer is a domesticated caribou. Oh really, that's the sole difference.
Speaker 3:That's it, same species. So in Scandinavia they have reindeer, because there's a lot of domesticated ones that are there. I don't know. Do they have reindeer milk there, or do they have reindeer cheese and stuff like that? I don't know. Do you know?
Speaker 4:I believe they do and they're sort of I'd say they're. I said they're domesticated and other. I'm sure they use the skins and whatnot, but most of the reindeer in the Scandinavian countries are semi-domesticated. There's some totally wild animals too, but not many, oh, okay.
Speaker 3:So interesting and in Ontario now, of course, now Santa had reindeer, Santa with an S, not Ranta with an R, had reindeer and basically so they would have been domesticated caribou, essentially right, that's correct. Interesting, I really didn't know that. I'm not sure a lot of people do, but we have basically caribou in Ontario, correct.
Speaker 4:That is correct. There are reindeer in North America, I think in Alaska, and possibly for sure in Alaska anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so those are semi-domesticated ones in Alaska.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I believe they were brought from Europe.
Speaker 3:So the caribou in Ontario. There's a number of different strains, I believe. Is there not Well, technically?
Speaker 4:all caribou in Ontario are woodland caribou, the subspecies woodland, but it's largely political, in my opinion, for a variety of reasons. They make differentiations between what they call the forest-dwelling, non-migratory ecotype, which are threatened with extinction according to the people that classify these things, and then there's the woodland caribou to the north, which are basically they do migrate and they live mostly in the tendril or non-forested areas or scrub forest in the north.
Speaker 3:But to differentiate the two it's just an arbitrary line.
Speaker 4:so if, if, if the caribou from the type that's not threatened with extinction crosses goes south and crosses the line, technically, then it becomes a threatened individual, and if it goes they become non-threatened. So it's a very strange situation. They're all the same animal though, like caribou all caribou and reindeer are all the same species.
Speaker 3:So when you say threatened, you mean on the endangered species list.
Speaker 4:That's correct.
Speaker 3:Okay, so in my understanding there was always a number of there's woodland, there's barren ground, there's mountain and there's what. Is it prairie or perry caribou?
Speaker 4:Prairie. It's P-E-A-R-Y. It's P-E-A-R-Y. They're on one of the far northern islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. They're a small subspecies, oh yes and is it?
Speaker 3:yeah, there was. What's the any idea on the populations, like with the ones, the Perry ones?
Speaker 4:They're quite low in number. I don't know how many there are, but it's not a large number. They've been in trouble for a few years but caribou numbers fluctuate wildly over time. Eh Like there's a. But caribou as a species in North America there's, there's lots of, generally depending. I mean it goes up and down, but generally there's between, say, two to 5 million uh caribou in North America, in Canada. As a general rule, over time there's more caribou in Canada than there are moose, whiteted deer, mule deer and elk combined.
Speaker 3:Oh, really that large a population?
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's well, in Quebec there was up until recently when the population collapsed, there was well over a million caribou just in Quebec alone. Now that population collapsed, yeah, and the George herd.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's the what's the George river herd. There's the George River herd and one other herd, yeah but both have collapsed.
Speaker 4:Now everybody gets into a panic when caribou collapse, but caribou populations historically are known to go through these wild population swings up and down and it's mainly because caribou the main forage that they eat in the winter are lichens.
Speaker 4:Lichens are very slow growing but caribou range over huge areas. So what happens is when caribou populations are low, lichens have a chance to grow Like lichens only grow like an inch, three quarters of an inch, maybe an inch and a half a year, so they're very slow growing ground lichens we're talking mostly there are arboreal lichens or lichens that grow in trees as well, but the main lichen that caribou eat are ground lichens and they grow really slowly over time but they can cover vast areas. So what happens is when caribou populations are low, lichens flourish and there becomes a huge amount of lichens and then the caribou population starts to take advantage of this huge food source and they just grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and they move around and the population explodes and then they wind up eating all the lichens and the population collapses. So that's basically caribou population dynamics 101.
Speaker 3:Wow. So yeah, because I know that the population. I was in some negotiations because there was a commercial wild meat retailer in Ontario who wanted to market some of the caribou out of Quebec. The population had such a huge decline that basically that opportunity was shut down for them because the population in Quebec was so low that his name was Sean at the time that Sean had no ability to be able to harvest any of those caribous because they were the one, when I dealt with the ministry there in Quebec that they were unsure as to why the population and I was in complete agreement with you that when you basically eat yourself out of house and home, that's when you get these large swings in population and then after that there wasn't much opportunity for them to be harvested. But one of the things probably was if they had increased the harvest limits there in Quebec, they wouldn't have those huge swings like they do in a lot of other species when they die off because of overpopulation, right.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, but it's hard to control populations because once the population gets really high and they start, as you say, start to eat themselves out of house and home, the other thing that happens is the wolf population gets really high and they start to be wolves all over the place. So then you start running into recruitment problems because, uh, there's too many animals and they've eaten all the food, so then the quality of the food goes down and there isn't as much of it and there's wolves all over the place. So it it's pretty hard to control. Uh, uh, like we're delusional if we think we can control populations over literally millions of square kilometers of landscape and animals that migrate hundreds of kilometers over the year. So it's just too difficult to be able to deal with those situations. And people, of course, course everybody sits around and argues about what they think the real problem is and so, as they're arguing, things take their own dynamic and go the way they want to go, like just as a side.
Speaker 4:So I was in, I was hunted caribou about 30, 25, 30 years ago, 1995. So almost 30 years ago in in uh Alaska and uh, the outfitters, tracy Vrem, we were sitting in the? Uh the cabin there one evening and he's saying so what do you think? And I said well, tracy. I says I says I'm not a caribou, uh, biologist, but I have studied caribou and I know a bit about and I've read certainly about them. And I said I know it seems stupid for me to say this because we're sitting in a room and he's got all the walls of the cabin are plastered with pictures of his guests over the last couple of decades, with these enormous caribou that his guests have taken. And I said I've been here for four or five days and I said the biggest fragment of lichen that I've been able to find was about a quarter of an inch. And I says I think your caribou here are incredible. And he looks at me like I was a complete alien.
Speaker 4:But two years later the caribou population there had collapsed. His hunting of caribou went completely out the window because there was no caribou left there at all. So I got a call from him one day and he basically acknowledged that what I had said was true. And I don't know what's happened since then. But, as I said, about two years after I was there, the population completely collapsed. Now, when I was still there, there were still lots of caribou, but there was just no food left, so it must have been. They were just on the precipice.
Speaker 3:And how long does it take for those lichens to rebound?
Speaker 4:Well, it would probably take at least a decade or more yeah, I understand.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of the forest harvesting is done on a caribou mosaic in ontario, which means they do large cuts so they're undisturbed to allow lichen growth to grow in ontario, if I remember correctly, right yes, but I'm not convinced that that can happen.
Speaker 4:Again. What research has found was the smallest patch of forest that can support a viable group of caribou over time is about 10,000 acres, 10,000 acres or hectares, I can't remember. It's 10,000, one or the other and I think it's 10,000 hectares and that's the largest cut that the present technology and policies will allow. So the very largest cut that they can actually do over a period of not to exceed, I think, 10 years is 10,000 hectares, which is the very smallest patch that caribou woodland, caribou can seek to survive in.
Speaker 4:Basically, what caribou live in the forest need are these huge fires, like fires that are 100, 200, 300,000 hectares in size, these astronomical fires that literally burn up the forest over this vast area. And after that fire passes it becomes suitable caribou habitat with lichens and very little undergrowth. And if it's a jack pine spruce forest after about 60 years old, then it then it's become suitable for caribou and they can use it then maybe for 100 years if it doesn't burn, or and then it becomes too old and starts to fall down and it can only be revitalized over time by another large burn. And basically that's how the forest, the boreal forest, works. As it burns. It's a fire driven ecosystem and woodland. If everything's absolutely perfect in the aftermath of these huge fires that renew the forest, then maybe in some of these areas caribou can survive.
Speaker 5:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast that's right. Every Thursday, ange and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 1:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, all the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 1:But now that we're reforesting and letting things freeze.
Speaker 2:it's the perfect transmission environment for live fish To chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 5:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, here we are in Lindsay with Bill, who's actually? This gentleman has given blood over 230 times 233. 233, and that's amazing, and you've had some success with Chaga. Tell us what you're dealing with and what you did and what you used.
Speaker 7:Well, I had mild high blood pressure. Mild high blood pressure wasn't very really high, but I was on medication for a few years. And then I quit drinking coffee and started drinking this tea, the combination tea, the green and the chaga Right, and my medication is gone.
Speaker 3:Your medication is gone, gone, and you couldn't give blood during the other times. Yeah, I could.
Speaker 7:Oh, you could.
Speaker 3:I could yeah.
Speaker 7:Yeah so, but a few times the machine kicked me out. Oh yeah so, but now it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 3:So you think the green tea and the chaga helped normalize your blood pressures?
Speaker 7:Oh yeah, oh very good, because it wouldn't be just stopping coffee, it would have to be something else.
Speaker 3:And that's the only thing you did different.
Speaker 7:Yep. Well thank you very much for that. My blood pressure is probably that of a 40-year-old man, and I'm 71. Oh, very good.
Speaker 3:Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much for that, no problem. Okay, we interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode.
Speaker 3:So, when it comes to Ontario, bruce, what kind of numbers are there in Ontario and where are these pockets of caribou? Because I know I was up at Fort Severn, which is an Indigenous community, and I was there last week of July, first week of August, and I actually sent you a picture of the hat they gave me about their, their big caribou hunt that they, uh, this community holds, which is usually the first week in September up there, uh, where they harvest a lot of caribou within that area. So what kind of numbers would there be and whereabouts in the province of Ontario are we finding them?
Speaker 4:Well, caribou used to be right down to the Minnesota border and all along the north shore of Lake Superior, right down including Manitoulin Island and on basically Highway 17 north. But now they're quite a bit further to the north and in northwestern Ontario, basically north of Red Lake in some areas, going across over on a. So I'm not sure what the parallel line is there, but it goes basically from Red Lake over towards James Bay and north of that and but there's. So the last survey that I'm aware of that they did maybe 15, 20 years ago, they figured there was about 20,000 caribou still in Ontario and they said about 5,000 of those are these non-migratory forest dwelling ecotype, which I think is like stretching things pretty far in terms of taxonomy to declare them something different from other caribou caribou. But and uh, and the five, fifteen thousand were the ones that aren't uh listed as uh threatened species. So the ones that are up in the further north they're mostly on tundra, uh type of environment. So but overall about 20 000 carib in Ontario.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was quite a while ago. I recall in the population different pockets around Now the Slate Island herd was kind of a special consideration there. Are you familiar with the Slate Island caribou there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've been out on the Slates even Well.
Speaker 4:What happened there was, of course it's a fairly small group of islands and of course the caribou wound up eating all the lichens on the forest floor and became in the winter dependent on lichens getting blown out of the tops of trees by storms.
Speaker 4:So basically they survived on arboreal lichens in the wintertime. Basically they survived on arboreal lichens in the wintertime. But we had a couple of really severe winters and the ice on Lake Superior froze and wolves got out there and pretty much licked them up. So there was very few caribou left on the slates. And then they wound up moving caribou over onto another island, michipacatan Island, which is a little further to the south and to the east of the slates, and wolves got out there after the caribou were introduced and the population exploded. But the caribou then got decimated by wolves again in another winter where the ice froze out to Mishpacotten and they cleaned up, started cleaning up the caribou there. So they captured a bunch of caribou and they moved them back to the slates. Mass of effort there to try and keep caribou on the mishpakot and also on the slates, but things aren't going swimmingly well I don't think.
Speaker 3:So my understanding was it was in the Slate Island. Caribou actually have a different look to them because of the foods they're eating. When you're talking there, I remember something was unique about that specific herd of caribou there.
Speaker 4:Well, I think caribou, just like any mammal, if they're isolated for any period of time, they start to take on their own sort of characteristics. Period of time they start to take on their own sort of characteristics. And I think what was going on on the slates is that virtually none of the one of the things I, if I'm correct in my recollections, is virtually none of the female caribou there had antlers, whereas in a normal population many, if not most of the female caribou, the cows, have small antlers, but on slates they virtually had the cows had virtually none of them had antlers. That's one thing.
Speaker 4:And I think it's mostly a nutritional thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, so now how many animals were moved over to the Mishmakot and from the slate? Do you recall?
Speaker 4:I think we're talking a population that was fluctuating from, you know, maybe 100 to, I don't know, 1,000 or 2,000. Maybe I thought might be a little high, but it was going up and down again depending on the severity of the winter, before the wolves came out there and then it was down to, I think at one point it was down to about, I think, two animals, and now they've introduced a bunch from cotton. So I don't know what the population, the latest estimates are. There's a few people that I could tell you that you should be talking to and they might be able to help you out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just know I'm very interested in caribou because I know I spent some time up at Pickle Lakeway and, to be perfectly honest, we saw more caribou in that area than we saw moose or anything else. The populations of caribou seemed to be very stable and it would all be woodland because it was all woodlands that they were in. So it was quite interesting to see the population. Probably we saw I would say probably 15 to 1 for every moose that we saw we'd see 15 caribou and just the population seemed to be very stable there. So we must get these pockets of caribou in different parts of the province like that well and it might seem stable at the time.
Speaker 4:But if you went back there this year it might not be the same at all. Like there's caribou around detour lake area, which is not too far from where you were, and, uh, when those caribou populations in quebec were doing really well, uh, what seemed to happen? There is some of those caribou from the far north in Quebec, right up along the shore of N'Gava Bay, would come all the way down into the southern well, still northern, but southern part of Quebec and some were even spilling across the border into Ontario. So some of those caribou that were wintering in that Detour Lake area of Ontario were more than likely caribou from Quebec.
Speaker 3:Interesting and one of the other things that I recall seeing stats about was that in Ontario, the up at Fort Severnway, which is where Hudson's Bay, manitoba and Ontario come together, the caribou there were actually calving in Ontario and then migrating over to Manitoba, where they actually had a harvest season for those caribou that would calve in Ontario and then migrate over to Manitoba. Have you heard or seen much of any kind of indications of populations moving like that?
Speaker 4:That's pretty well known and they still are moving back and forth between Ontario and Quebec along the coast there.
Speaker 3:Same with Manitoba, then?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what I meant. Along the coast there between Ontario and Manitoba it's still a movement that occurs regularly, and so that's part of those. Some of those 15,000 caribou that I said are in the northern part of Ontario that aren't threatened with extinction. Many of those caribou go back and forth between Ontario and Manitoba.
Speaker 3:Now, but Ontario does not have seasons and limits for harvesting caribou as they do for moose and deer.
Speaker 4:Well, there's not a recreational harvest, but there's a substantial harvest by Aboriginal people. So, basically, the allocation has been. I mean, the allocation is to the natives, that's what it is. So the allowable harvest has been allocated to the natives and they are allowed to harvest as they seem fit.
Speaker 3:Yes, and actually I was in Pewannock, which is right up at Polar Bear Provincial Park, canada or Ontario's largest provincial park, and I happened to be sitting with the band there and there was an individual there where the chief was chastising one of his band members or the council members, because he said he'd harvest too many caribou, you don't need to, you don't need that many.
Speaker 3:And he was. It was, it was. It was rather interesting that they were concerned enough to make sure that there was a sustainable population in that area, which is good to have, and but but the other individual had tried, tried to justify that he was giving it to the families in piwanak so that they had enough to make it through the wintertime, just as a sustainable protein source. And some of it, though I recall is your discussion when you were I guess it was when you were out west was that you felt that the meat grain of caribou was very loose grain to allow the blood to flow through the animal in such cold, extreme temperatures. If you remember anything about that conversation that we had, oh, probably 25, 30 years ago.
Speaker 4:Well, no, I don't really recall that, and I'm not, I'm not, that's not. My area of specialty, by any means, is biochemistry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was just interesting. And even the hairs on the caribou are designed for warmth and things like that and a very different kind of makeup to survive a lot of the extreme cold weathers, I believe. Are they not compared to, say, whitetail? I believe?
Speaker 4:they're hollow the hair on caribou, so it's very good insulation on them. It makes them to be quite the good swimmers as well, because it's buoyant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually that was to be honest. When we were up in Pickle Lake, we got lost on the lake, because the lake we're on is 90 kilometers long and some of the bays are 20 kilometers deep. On these bays and we had been taken out to one section and then left out there and I told the person with me I said, ron, the only thing I want you to look is behind us to know where to go. And anyways, we got lost and here we are trying to find our way back on a 90-kilometer-long lake with bays, like I said, 20 kilometers deep. And I look over and I thought what is that over there? Does that ever look strange? So I thought it was to be honest.
Speaker 3:You could see what looked like geese swimming in the water and then goslings, what appeared to be goslings, swimming behind them, and I thought let's go over there and take a look at that. Anyways, it ended up being caribou and when they swam, their tails stuck out of the water and the gosling what we thought, or I thought, was goslings was actually the tail of the caribou sticking out of the water because, like you said, they're very buoyant when they swim and their hooves are very much, very large hooves. I guess that's for walking in the snow and swimming as well. But uh, it was their. Their heads were the front part that we thought were geese and the the tails were what we thought were gosling, which was end of September sort of time of year. So it was kind of surprising to see something like that. But it was certainly interesting to see that small group of caribou swimming in the water, the way they were Very, very surprising, but, yeah, buoyant, like you said, very buoyant.
Speaker 4:They're very good swimmers.
Speaker 3:So what else can you tell us about here? So what other pockets? So I know there's one up. I guess they kind of go in pockets, do they not? In the province of Ontario there's small groups here and small groups there, and small groups everywhere.
Speaker 4:Well, they move around a lot for one, and, if you recall, we had quite the fire season, not last summer but the summer before. Recall we had quite the fire season, not last summer but the summer before, and a large, I think, since the creation of Woodland Caribou Provincial Park, which is a park north of here. It's created specifically and in mind with because of the population of Woodland Caribou in it. About 80% of that park has burnt since its creation about 25 or 30 years ago, and so those caribou, they didn't burn up in the fire, they just moved. So where they moved to, who knows? But that's what happens. When you have these big, huge fires that are, as I said, hundreds of thousands of hectares in size, it goes through, wipes out the habitat for the caribou and then they just move somewhere else.
Speaker 4:Caribou are always wandering around, that's well known. Aboriginal people have always said that the caribou are wanderers, and so I, you know who knows exactly how they communicate. But in the aftermath of one of these big fires, probably one of the, some of the caribou are able to say well, you know, in my wanderings here's I found some places that are probably pretty good for us, so let's go there. So they move and all of a sudden caribou will show up in areas and maybe take. All of a sudden there's a little caribou population there. Again, it has to be forest, a big patch of forest that's suitable for them, as I said, over 60 years old, mostly conifer and not a lot of second-growth forest, because that attracts. If it's second-growth forest there'll be a lot of moose there, and if there's a lot of moose then there's a lot of wolves and the wolves wind up catching and eating the caribou. So caribou like to be in areas that don't have a lot of other animals in them.
Speaker 3:So are wolves, from the sense of getting the number one predator of caribou, correct? That would be true. And is there other predators? Bears must prey on them as well. Oh yeah, bears would prey on them.
Speaker 4:Is there any evidence of that?
Speaker 3:Probably lynx wolverine, oh really, well, just to give people a sense of size, do you have any idea of the average size, say, of a male-female caribou?
Speaker 4:I think a good-sized bull would be over 400 pounds live weight, so a ferret may be almost twice the size of a large whitetail buck, and cows would be somewhat, quite a bit smaller.
Speaker 3:Do you know, bruce? Is there much research going on? I know the Ministry of Natural Resources is always. Some of the difficulties are managing and having the funds to manage all the species that are available in the province of Ontario. Is there much research being taken place? I know I did assist with a couple of studies. I believe it was Safari Club International provided funds for a study of the barren ground ones in the far north, but I'm not sure if there's any more research taking place in Ontario on caribou Well there is some.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I know, as I said, they've been spending quite a bit of money and I'm sure there's research that goes along with the actual management activities of this business with the Slade Islands and the Mshikotan herds. So they're looking at that. There are some. I'm not sure what else is going on, but certainly there's quite a bit of effort and time and money being spent on caribou in those areas.
Speaker 3:Well, that's you know. Caribou have always been an interest of myself. I've never. The only ones I ever saw were up in the Pickle Lake area that I recall. I can't really recall any sea and other pockets and we've been in a number of spots in northern Ontario, up to Timmins Way, up to Hearst, sault, ste Marie and a lot of other areas, thunder Bay, north of Thunder Bay, ignis and such. But that was the only pocket that I recall and I always found it very interesting. But like I said, at that time we certainly saw a large abundance of caribou in that area, which I think it's a good thing to have those in Ontario.
Speaker 3:But from your perspective, bruce, then you don't believe that there's, when they talk about threatened or endangered, that caribou in that sense in Ontario or Canada-wide. I mean because our conversations in the past, where sometimes they look at areas specific and I recall one conversation when I was minister was that the bald eagle population in Northern Ontario was doing great but the Southern Ontario bald eagles were not doing so well and I was just like bald eagles are bald eagles, okay, they'll stay in an area where the feed is in that area. So I don't think there's a southern population of bald eagles, and it's pretty much the same with caribou, that if you look Canada-wide, the population is pretty stable and that there's not shouldn't be concerns about threatened or endangered, from your perspective.
Speaker 4:Well, it's a case of people want to see. They don't want to see a range disturbance or a range decline any longer, they're just worried about that. So that's what they've come up with this business of woodland caribou. The forest-dwelling, non-migratory herds are not doing so well. So, as I said though, all the caribou in Ontario and in Quebec, most of the ones in Manitoba, they're all woodland caribou, but they're not all forest-dwelling, non-migratory woodland caribou, forest-dwelling, non-migratory woodland caribou. So the ones that live in the forest, in these little herds they're not doing so well.
Speaker 4:But there's a study that was done on the red wine herd in Quebec several years ago Now. The red wine herd is one of these non-migratory. Red wine herd is one of these non-migratory forest dwelling herds that is not doing so well. So they were there on the list of being threatened with extinction. But so what they found was they had all these caribou collar, both those and caribou that were not. The are the migratory ones. So the migratory ones would come through the area that are occupied by the red wine herd and guess what happened? Well, some of the caribou that were in the red wine herd went, decided that hey, I like these other guys, I want to be with these guys that are moving around. So they left and joined up with the migratory herd and some of the migratory herd said the migratory herd. And some of the migratory herd said I think I'm just going to hang out here with the red wine guys.
Speaker 4:So there's a, they're all the same caribou, they're just there's different life strategies that some herds are are taking that is different than what other herds are taking and it's like so that's. It's like if there's I don't know 20 or 30 different subspecies of whitetail deer, there's lots and lots of subspecies of whitetail deer but everybody thinks they're all whitetail deer and there are lots of people think deer are like forest rats. So there's not too much concern about deers. There's lots of them, they're everywhere and no one gets too whipped up about the different subspecies of white-tailed deer. But caribou, because they're way far to the north, most people don't see them. They have some romantic ideal of what caribou are because they affiliate them with pristine wilderness. So they're romanticized far more than something like a whitetail deer.
Speaker 3:Well, that's certainly interesting and I find it very informative on some of the things about reindeer and caribou and things like that. And, bruce, where can people find out more information if they want to find out more details about caribou and reindeer and things like that?
Speaker 4:Well, I think it's like everything these days is. The easiest thing is just to go on the internet and Google caribou, google Woodland Caribou, google this and that about caribou, and you'll get millions of hits and you can do research till the cows come home, basically, and read up on anything you want to read up on them. So that's the easiest way to do it these days and that's what I think most people who have an interest are doing. So that's where to go. That's the where to go spot for anything. I guess these days it's already down to the library.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's a case of waiting until the cow caribou come home to find out some of the details, but how can people access some of the MNR and Ministry of Natural Resources studies on caribou? Is that something that's made available or are you familiar with anybody being able to access those studies?
Speaker 4:I think there's on the Ministry of Natural Resources website. You can go and there are some. I'm not exactly sure what's available, but they will have some information available on Caribou on the ministry website. Now it may not be all that detailed, but there is some information definitely available on their website.
Speaker 3:Well, bruce, thank you very much. We very much appreciate you taking the time and I want to wish you and your family and all those that listen to our program here and around the world and those that celebrate as we do, a Merry Christmas as we talk about Santa and his caribou, or Santa and his reindeer and what happens in the growth and what regulates them, and how it's looked at in the province of Ontario and throughout Canada. Thanks a lot for being on the program. Bruce Really appreciate that.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me, Jerry. All the best to you. Okay, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you, Ho ho ho.
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Speaker 5:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
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