Recent evidence in the oil sands of Alberta, Canada show that humans not wolves pose the biggest threat to the local caribou herds. Studies of wolf scat indicated that caribou made up only 10 percent of the wolves’ diet. Hormone levels studied in caribou scat showed that caribou nutrition was poorest and psychological stress was highest in areas where human activities were greatest. When humans left areas, caribou nutrition improved as their stress when down.
The oil sands contain the second largest oil preserve in the world. This sets the stage for conflicts between the well-being of the caribou and humans efforts to develop oil fields. The oil industry had favored removing the wolves as a way to help the caribou population. Current research shows this is faulty thinking as the wolves are a far distant second to human in terms of threat to caribou and removing the wolves could throw off the balance of the local ecosystem.
To learn more go to sources for this article the Ecological Society of America’s Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Journal: The influences of wolf predation, habitat loss, and human activity on caribou and moose in the Alberta oil sands
NY Times Greatest Threat to Caribou Herd in Alberta Is Humans
Natural History Wanderings 
Very true. It’s very easy for us to blame something else for the problems with our environment instead of realizing that we are the problem. We live in denial and that will be our downfall.
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By: Jon's Musings on June 30, 2011
at 9:09 PM