The Gray Ghosts Are Gone: How We Lost Caribou in the Lower 48

Jan 2

In January 2019, a helicopter lifted off from the Selkirk Mountains along the Washington-British Columbia border, carrying the last wild caribou that would ever roam the contiguous United States. For Bart George, wildlife program manager for the Kalispel Tribe, watching that female caribou disappear into the sky was like "losing a piece of the tribe in some way."

And just like that, after thousands of years, mountain caribou—the Gray Ghosts—were gone from America's lower 48 states.

A Range That Once Spanned Half a Continent

It's hard to wrap your head around just how massive the caribou's historic range was. At the time of European settlement, caribou roamed across most of Canada and Alaska, extending south into New England, New York, the Upper Great Lakes states, Montana, Idaho, and Washington—all the way down to 42 degrees north latitude.

The South Selkirk herd that Bart George works with was special. These weren't just any caribou—they were mountain caribou, a distinct ecotype found only in the forested mountains of northwestern North America. They're uniquely adapted to deep snow, with hooves the size of dinner plates that act like snowshoes. They spend their lives in the inland temperate rainforest, among ancient western red cedars and western hemlocks that most people never knew existed.

"The southern end of the Selkirk Mountains was home to the only extant woodland caribou population in the contiguous United States by the 2000s," according to historical records. By 1980, only 25-30 animals persisted in north Idaho and northeast Washington. The species was listed as endangered in 1984 under the Endangered Species Act.

Watching a Herd Disappear

In the Prairie Farm Podcast episode 320, Bart George and Dr. Brook Lang walk through what happened to these caribou over the last few decades. The story is one of effort, hope, and ultimately heartbreak.

Conservation groups tried everything. They bolstered the population with individuals from other herds. They banned logging and snowmobiling in much of the herd's range. They implemented a controversial wolf culling program to protect the caribou from predation. The Kalispel Tribe raised money to build a maternity pen for vulnerable herd members.

By April 2018, only three caribou remained in the South Selkirk herd—all females. Without a male, as wildlife biologist Mark Hebblewhite told The National Post, "it's game over." The herd was declared "functionally extinct."

One of those remaining three was killed by a cougar. Another disappeared from researchers' radar due to a tracking collar malfunction. The last known member was captured by British Columbia wildlife officials in January 2019 and moved to a captive breeding pen near Revelstoke.

The contiguous United States had officially lost its last wild caribou.

It All Comes Down to Habitat

"We've really jeopardised their habitat over the last 30 to 40 years through unsustainable rates of logging," Mark Hebblewhite told The Guardian. "It's all about habitat. You can do everything you want; you can kill wolves, you can kill invasive predators, you can kill species like moose … but none of that is going to work unless you protect sufficient habitat."

Here's how the habitat destruction works: Heavy logging in British Columbia and adjacent lands creates forest disturbance that benefits populations of other hoofed animals like moose and deer. Those animals, in turn, attract predators such as wolves and mountain lions. The predators then spill over into the remaining patches of protected habitat, where they feed on caribou.

Because of that dynamic, even the protected "core habitat" areas weren't enough. The damage happening just outside those boundaries made the protected areas less effective.

Could They Come Back?

When we asked Bart if he could snap his fingers and change one thing, his answer was immediate: he would get caribou back below the 49th parallel. "That's something that we could see in our lifetime," he said on the podcast, "but it's going to take more than a snap of the fingers—it's going to take some political will."

And there's a catch. Conservationists fear that removing caribou from the wild will ultimately lead to the lifting of protections for their habitat, especially if the animals never return. Both British Columbia and the United States have identified and protected large areas of core habitat for mountain caribou. But if there are no caribou using it, how long will those protections last?

There's talk of a captive breeding program—which would cost roughly $7.8 million—specifically designed to produce caribou for eventual return to the wild. According to Bart, there's been a major push for this long-term project in the Canadian government. Some conservation groups are also working on collaborative efforts like maternity pens and habitat restoration projects that could one day support caribou populations again.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized endangered species protections for Southern Mountain caribou in October 2019—ironically, after they'd already been removed from U.S. territory. The protected critical habitat includes only 30,010 acres instead of the 300,000 originally proposed. "For these species to return to the western U.S., more habitat has to be protected," said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

What Would It Take?

Bart was right that bringing caribou back would require a definite change in mentality among the majority of Americans—which would be a sign of health in a lot of different ways. It would mean prioritizing intact forest ecosystems over short-term economic gain from logging. It would mean accepting that some places should remain wild, even if they could be "productive" in traditional economic terms. It would mean cross-border cooperation between Canada and the United States to manage habitat as an ecosystem rather than according to political boundaries.

It's not impossible. We've brought species back from the brink before. But caribou need massive amounts of undisturbed habitat, and they're slow to reproduce. Every year without action makes recovery harder.

The Gray Ghosts got their nickname because they were so rarely glimpsed—elusive animals of deep forest and high snow. Now they're ghosts in a different sense. They haunt the Selkirk Mountains in memory only, a reminder of what we've lost and what we could still lose if we don't change course.

For the Kalispel Tribe and other indigenous nations who have shared the landscape with caribou for millennia, the loss is cultural as well as ecological. These weren't just animals passing through—they were part of the fabric of place, woven into stories and sustenance and the rhythms of the land.

The question now isn't whether we can bring them back. The question is whether we will.

Listen to the full conversation with Bart George and Dr. Brook Lang on the Prairie Farm Podcast episode 320.

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