Habitat use by woodland caribou near Takla Lake in central British Columbia

Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) living in the mountainous areas of British Colu mbia are usually classified as either northern caribou, which spend much of the winter in low-elevation relatively young forests foraging primarily on terrestrial lichens, or mountain caribou, which winter in high-elevation o ld subalpine forests foraging exclusively on arboreal lichens. The forest-m anagement practices necessary to conserve caribou differ substantially betw een these two categories of animals with different life-history strategies. Because of this variability in winter-habitat use, information relating sp ecifically to Takla Lake caribou was required for forest management. To pro vide this information, we radio-collared 15 female caribou in two subherds in the vicinity of Takla Lake and determined their distribution and movemen ts between January 1996 and May 1998 in relation to topography and vegetati on cover. Habitat selection was examined using a classified satellite image . At the landscape scale, Takla Lake caribou avoided low-elevation forests (presumably because of the associated high risk of predation from wolves (C anis lupus)), occupying small seasonally overlapping home ranges (mean 151 km(2)) at intermediate and high elevations. Within home ranges in all seaso ns, caribou were most often found in the forest but, relative to availabili ty, they selected forests only during calving. When in the forest, caribou selected open hybrid white-Engelmann spruce (Picea glauca x Picea engelmann ii) - subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) forests over lodgepole pine (Pinus c ontorta) and deciduous forests in all seasons except spring. Caribou select ed open spruce-fir stands over dry and closed spruce-fir stands in all seas ons except calving. We conclude that caribou feed primarily on arboreal lic hens in winter, because the open spruce-fir forests that they use have mode rate to high arboreal lichen abundance, deep snow, and few terrestrial lich ens. Takla Lake caribou were not typical of either mountain or northern car ibou, but as is typical of insular populations of any species, have adapted to the food, topography, and cover types available to them on their mounta in islands in a sea of moose (Alces alces) and wolves.