Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO Mr. Johnson. Senator, I notice there's some confusion with respect to the areas involved in Long Canyon. And I think the ranger of the Bonners Ferry district would be the best source of information for accurate data on that. Today I want to discuss the relationship of caribou with wilderness. I'm a professor of zoology at the University of Idaho and a charter member of the International Mountain Caribou Technical Committee. This commitee was formed in 1971 to promote the protection of Selkirk caribou. I've been asked several times whether we could manage caribou under a modified multiple-use system. And my answer would be this: We could. And this would be if and only if we had control over access. And this is something that's been emphasized already today. This access permits poaching. And some of this I'm sure is unintentional. We nave people that can't recognize caribou from elk or deer. But I'm sure some of it is also deliberate. And I have confirmed four mortalities in British Columbia caused by poaching since 1977. Now, this sounds like a very small number of caribou for that many years. But we have to recall we're working with a 334 small number of animals. And, also, we have a low opportunity of recovering such kills. Something that hasn't been stressed here today is strict law enforcement. We have laws protecting these animals on both sides of the line. We need funding and we need encouragement from our Members of Congress to provide us funding at the Federal level so that we have such things as caribou gordons. And we might even need deputies during the fall when it seems like most of this mortality occurs. Lastly, we'll need the cooperation of the Canadians because some of these animals live in Canada. And I'm pleased to say that they have made considerable progress there in—the Canadians with road closures and even experimentally closing one area where we've had some caribou mortalities.