Tribe Takes Lead in Saving Reindeer Herd in Rocky Mountains

SALMON, Idaho — A Native American tribe in Idaho has been given the task of creating a plan for saving a tiny band of wild reindeer from extinction in a far corner of the northern Rocky Mountains, straddling the border of the United States and Canada, American wildlife officials said. A population of woodland caribou now numbering just 14 in the remote Selkirk Mountains has been at the center of a protracted fight among conservationists, the Fish and Wildlife Service and groups promoting recreational use and logging in the creatures’ alpine habitat. First listed as an endangered species in 1984, they are the only wild reindeer of their kind left in the Lower 48 states, though they are close cousins of caribou that roam northern Alaska in large herds. Under a rare agreement with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kootenai Tribe of northern Idaho will receive $35,000 to create an updated recovery plan for the Selkirk caribou, which rely on old-growth forests in elevations above 4,000 feet for a winter diet of lichens. Recovery measures could include restoration of habitat fragmented by logging, wildfires and snowmobile trails, said Kim Garner, chief of recovery for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Boise...more