The South Peace Winter Motorized Recreation Management Plan has gone into effect, and, as expected, a large swath of the riding areas have been closed.
The bad news is, about 454,000 hectares of Crown land have been closed to snowmobiles.
The good news is that eight areas—including the Core Lodge—have not seen any closures.
And, according to the BC government, 71 percent of the riding areas “identified as being important to snowmobiliers” remain open. And, says the government, “riders can continue to enjoy their sport elsewhere in the region where their activities will have fewer impacts on caribou habitat and caribou recovery efforts.”
But local riders are not happy.
According to the South Peace Snowmobile Advisory Committee, the South Peace provides excellent riding opportunities for riders of all skill levels. “Snowmobiling in northern BC generates $38.7 million in economic output, $9.3 million in GDP and $1.9 million in government revenues,” says a report submitted by the group to the government back in February of 2021. “Snowmobiling supports 444 jobs representing 148 full time equivalent positions. Though snowmobiling in the South Peace region is already an important economic driver in the off season, snowmobiling experts suggest that the region holds some of the best snowmobiling opportunity anywhere in the province and the snowmobile tourism industry has far from reached its potential.”
But, according to the BC Government, something had to be done. The Central Group of Southern Mountain Caribou has been listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act. The Federal Government was within their rights to shut the area down to all human activity, and so the Government of British Columbia, Government of Canada, West Moberly First Nation and Saulteau First Nation developed the “Intergovernmental Partnership Agreement for the Conservation of the Central Group to the Southern Mountain Caribou (Partnership Agreement).”
That report was released on February 21, 2020, and it set out actions designed to stabilize and grow the population of the Central Group to levels that are self-sustaining, “and support traditional aboriginal harvesting activities, consistent with existing Aboriginal and Treaty rights”.
The conflict arises as many of the most popular snowmobiling areas in the South Peace overlap important caribou habitat. “Although winter motorized recreation is not the primary threat to caribou recovery, operating vehicles such as snowmobiles in alpine and sub-alpine caribou habitat can disturb and displace the animals, put unnecessary stress on them and make them more vulnerable to predators such as wolves and cougars,” says the provincial government.
“These closures will complement ongoing caribou recovery activities in the area, including: habitat protection; habitat restoration; predator reduction; maternal penning; and supplemental feeding.”
Worried that their riding areas would be impacted, the Advisory Committee members “developed a robust inventory and understanding of the most popular snowmobiling areas in the South Peace, evaluated how and where snowmobiling and caribou are most likely to interact, and prepared a comprehensive suite of recommendations on the direct and indirect management actions that should be taken to manage snowmobiling in support of caribou recovery.”
These recommendations, they say, were completely ignored.
In May, a draft management plan was released which showed the areas the government was planning on closing.
Despite receiving feedback from avid snowmobiliers, the areas that were ultimately closed are very close to what was originally proposed.
In the Tumbler Ridge area, nearly all the Bullmoose riding area has been closed, outside of the access road and some lower elevation areas in the northeast corner of the area.
The Wolverine riding area—a favourite for expert riders seeking alpine adventures—has more areas that remain open, but the main draw to the area—the alpine bowls—are closed.
According to the government, the goal is to mitigate the impacts of winter motorized recreation on caribou recovery, while retaining or enhancing recreation opportunities in areas outside key caribou habitat. “These closures will complement ongoing caribou recovery activities in the area, including: habitat protection; habitat restoration; predator reduction; maternal penning; and supplemental feeding.”
While snowmobilers are lamenting the loss of riding areas, the government is providing $150,000 for local snowmobile clubs, to help them “plan winter motorized recreation enhancement projects outside of the areas being managed to protect caribou habitat. Projects could include new access, maintenance of existing trails and other projects identified by the clubs.”
A public engagement process ran from May 19 through July 14. People responded by completing an online survey, submitting letters or commenting on a map indicating the closures being contemplated.
Mayor Keith Bertrand, who was part of the South Peace Snowmobile Advisory Committee, says the government basically doubled the number of recommended closures. “A lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of detail was put into that plan,” says Bertrand. “The strategy basically, doubles if not triples the amount of area closures that we recommended, as well as didn’t include any of the slight modifications that would allow snowmobilers in the area to access areas that are still open.”
Southern Mountain Caribou, including the herds within the Central Group, have experienced significant population declines over the past three generations.
Caribou have been suffering population loss for the last sixty years, as new and more industrial development impacts the South Peace. The Burnt Pine group was a thriving population of caribou in the 1960s, but when the WAC Bennett Dam was opened, it divided the caribou’s traditional territory, and hundreds, if not thousands, of caribou died trying to swim across what was once just a river, but now was a lake. By the early 2000s, there was only 11 left, then ten, then five, and then, there were none, as the last known caribou—a young bull—wandered out of the area in 2014 and was never seen again.
Over the past five years, the Kennedy Siding, Klinse-Za and Quintette herds have seen some population growth, while the Narraway herd appears to be stable, due in part to conservation efforts like maternal penning, habitat protection and predator reduction.
However, this comes after years of declines for all these herds. In 2016, the number of caribou was estimated at 166, but that has climbed to 250 in recent years.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
