A new interactive tool shows the history of habitat disturbance and recovery in woodland caribou ranges across BC and Alberta.
Edmonton, AB (August 19, 2026) — A new online tool has launched today that provides information on disturbance from wildfires and human activities in woodland caribou ranges in western Canada since 1960.
Woodland caribou are an at-risk species found across the boreal forest and mountain ranges of Alberta and British Columbia. Habitat loss and alteration throughout their range is one of the factors linked to the decline of caribou populations.
The Caribou Habitat Information Platform (CHIP) is a free, online tool for tracking and reporting on change in land cover within the caribou ranges in Alberta and British Columbia. Using over 60 years of publicly available data, interactive reports on landscape change over time—both disturbance and recovery—are available for over 70 subpopulations of boreal, southern mountain, and northern mountain caribou.
Habitat disturbance and recovery
Disturbances can contribute to caribou declines in a number of ways. Caribou recovery depends on managing disturbance and transparently tracking progress.
After large disturbances such as forest harvest and wildfires, there is an abundance of young, leafy plants that deer and moose like to eat, leading to increases in their populations. More moose and deer in turn support more predators like wolves, who will also hunt caribou.
Narrow, linear disturbances such as trails and seismic lines can act as “highways” that increase the hunting efficiency of wolves and help them access difficult areas such as peatlands, which can further increase predation pressure on caribou.
An important part of the Caribou Habitat Information Platform is its inclusion of habitat recovery over time. Some disturbances, such as forest harvest and wildfire, will recover to forest cover over time. Other disturbances are being actively restored throughout caribou ranges. Using information collected by satellites measuring changes in the levels of “greenness” of plants growing on disturbances, the tool estimates when areas have regrown to a state that may act as potential caribou habitat.
For instance, over 40% of the Bistcho boreal caribou range in northwestern Alberta has been impacted by wildfire since the year 2003. Those burns have not had time to recover to the mature forest cover used by caribou and net disturbance remains high.
In the Red Earth caribou range in northeastern Alberta, where a large wildfire in 1980 burned a fifth of the range, recovery has taken place over the past 60 years and 10% of burned areas are considered recovered based on “greenness”, lowering net disturbance in the range.
In British Columbia the Klinse-Za range was largely protected from habitat alteration in 2021, and the net change in forestry disturbance is declining, possibly as a result of this conservation action. The net disturbance value from forest harvest decreased from 7.4% to 6.0%.
A tool for adaptive management
Tracking both disturbance and recovery is essential for accurately showing trend of caribou habitat. Currently, the platform accounts for recovery after forest harvest and wildfire. But using new sources of information such as lidar data, it will soon include recovery information on more disturbances, such as seismic lines.
Quotes
“Caribou recovery will require all of us to work together. Free, public information and tools such as the Caribou Habitat Information Platform help build a shared understanding of how we got to where we are today, and can help us find a path forward.” – Jim Herbers, Executive Director, Biodiversity Pathways
“This tool is about transparency, having information easily accessible to the public. It is also about introducing the concept of net rate of change. Not just habitat loss or habitat recovery, but what is the net trend for each caribou range, and how this might be affected by policy. ”
Dr. Robert Serrouya, Co-Director Wildlife Science Centre, Biodiversity Pathways
“Good conservation starts with good information. This platform puts more than 60 years of habitat information at people’s fingertips, making it easier than ever to explore how caribou landscapes have changed and how they’re recovering.”
Dr. Melanie Dickie, Caribou Ecology Manager, Biodiversity Pathways
What’s great about the tool is that it provides standardized information at the range level for every range.
Quick facts
- Reporting covers over 70 subpopulations of boreal, southern mountain, and northern mountain caribou
- Covers all woodland caribou ranges in Alberta and British Columbia
- Over 60 years of data on wildfires and direct human alterations to the land was analyzed
- Funded by the Governments of Canada, British Columbia, and Alberta
About
The Caribou Habitat Information Platform (CHIP) was developed by Biodiversity Pathways and the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, affiliated non-profit institutions based in western Canada. CHIP is an interactive tool that provides standardized, annually-updated reports on disturbance in woodland caribou ranges across Alberta and British Columbia, showing trends in caribou habitat disturbance and recovery. Users can explore information at multiple scales, including individual subpopulations of boreal, southern mountain, and northern mountain caribou. It can be found online at https://wildlifescience.ca/caribou-habitat-tracker/.
Biodiversity Pathways is a not-for-profit organization operating across Canada. We work collaboratively to develop and implement science-based monitoring programs that provide relevant, accessible information to support decision-making at local, regional, and national scales.
The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute is a non-profit organization that tracks the status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems across Alberta. Working collaboratively, the ABMI provides ongoing, relevant, and scientifically credible information on Alberta’s landscapes and environment.