A remote and rugged river valley located on the north end of Shuswap Lake in B.C.’s Southern Interior is home to an incredible wetland ecosystem.
Known as the Upper Seymour, it’s around 100 km from Salmon Arm. It’s pristine and is also home to an at-risk mountain caribou herd.
“The Seymour, as a whole, has some of the most spectacular and rare inland temperate rainforest that I’ve ever encountered,” said Eddie Petryshen of Wildsight, a registered charity that tries to protect biodiversity in the Columbia and Rocky Mountain ranges.
However, Petryshen says a newly proposed clear-cut is threatening to destroy more than majestic western red cedars in the area.
In fact, he claims there’s a proposal to clearcut 608 hectares of core caribou habitat.
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And those proposed cutblocks, he says, are critical to one herd called Columbia North.
“There’s 209 caribou in there, and they are kind of our last shot in the southernmost caribou herds,” said Petryshen.
One biologist who studies the effects of logging on caribou populations says the consequences of more logging in the area for caribou are obvious.
“It will create more food for moose and deer, which will create more predators and further predation risk to caribou,” said Robert Serrouya of UBC’s Wildlife Science Centre.
That’s bad news for B.C.’s mountain caribou, which is a species that’s already at risk.
“In the Kootenay and Columbia region, we’re at seven caribou herds that have been extirpated (declared local extinct),” said Petryshen.
Global News has contacted both Stella-Jones and Pacific Woodtech about their recent clearcut proposals.
In response to those clearcut proposals, Wildsight has started a letter-writing campaign.
“Please take action and call for David Eby, the premier, to step in and help protect these caribou,” said Petryshen, “and help ensure they have a future.”
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