Province grants $2 million to create Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund

VICTORIA — The province is giving two million dollars to a trust set up to help restore caribou habitat.

Forests Minister Doug Donaldson announced the funding for the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation while speaking to the B.C. Wildlife Federation’s annual conference today.

Donaldson says there is only about 19,000 caribou left in B.C. — down from about 40-thousand in the early 1900s — and helping to improve and recover their habitat will help rebuild the herds.

The fund uses reforestation and fencing among other measures to restore habitat in areas where roads, trails, right-of-ways and seismic lines have made caribou more visible to predators, such as wolves, bears and cougars.