The Erosion of Threatened Southern Mountain Caribou Migration.

ABSTRACT: Migration enables animals to access seasonally and spatially varying resources, resulting in greater abundance compared to analogous non-migratory wildlife. Both Western science and Indigenous knowledge recognize the critical role of migration in sustaining wildlife; yet these movements are increasingly disrupted by human activity worldwide. Despite their importance, long-term changes in migratory patterns for large mammals remain challenging to quantify. Therefore, to address this gap, we analyzed 35 years (1987-2022) of telemetry data for southern mountain caribou (n = 2967 animal-years), a threatened population that typically exhibits two main types of annual migration. The first type is a single horizontal migration between summer and winter ranges, while the second is a twice-per-year

SUBMITTER: Lamb CT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11874175 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature