At the El Paso Zoo most of our North American animals are from the southwest US and northern Mexico with a major focus on wildlife from the El Paso region and the northern Chihuahuan Desert.  Up until the end of the last Ice Age there was a time when many other animals like extinct giant sloths, cave bears and wooly mammoths also lived in our part of the world. One species that most people rarely think of in Texas, with the exception of the Christmas season, is the reindeer, also called caribou.  Some scientists have hypothesized that Pleistocene caribou adapted to a tundra belt that extended across from the southern edge of the ice sheet from New Jersey, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and on to the mountainous region of the southwest including New Mexico and Nevada.

Today Caribou have a circumpolar distribution native to the Arctic, sub-Arctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. All caribou in the world are one species (Rangifer tarandus). Woodland or mountain caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) are the southernmost of five subspecies in North America, historically ranging throughout most of southern Canada and portions of the United States.

Earlier this year when I was driving home from Yellowstone National Park I passed through Caribou Targhee National Forest in Idaho.   As I scanned the forests along the highway I wanted to know why the forest was named after the caribou.  When I got home I went online and discovered that the last mountain caribou in the lower 48 states disappeared from Idaho in early 2019, less than two years ago.

Also known as boreal woodland caribou, I have been in contact with a number of people working to help mountain caribou return to this part of the world.  To bring back the mountain caribou to the lower 48 it is important to conserve habitat and caribou populations in Canada where caribou need to survive to sustain a future transboundary population.  

Thanks to David Moskowitz, who I recently spoke with on the phone and who in 2018 published a book on the mountain caribou entitled Caribou Rainforest, from Heartbreak to Hope, I now have a better understanding of what needs to happen to help this beautiful member of the deer family that so many of us love because of Christmas.  In the coming year I hope to be involved in helping with conservation efforts.  The Calgary Zoo has been breeding mountain caribou to augment herds in national parks in Canada. Perhaps a similar effort can happen here in the US to help bring back the caribou to Idaho and Washington State.

To learn more and get involved you can go online and check out some YouTube videos and get a copy of Moskowitz’s book available on Amazon.

Rick LoBello, Education Curator

Photo Credits – Copyright David Moskowitz
References- Published online 2012 Dec 21.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052661
Phylogeographical Analysis of mtDNA Data Indicates Postglacial Expansion from Multiple Glacial Refugia in Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou)