A USask researcher has discovered that tiny beetles can be a big threat to endangered woodland caribou.

A paper co-authored by Dr. Philip McLoughlin (PhD) says threats to Canada’s endangered woodland caribou can be traced back to spruce budworm infestations and salvage logging. McLoughlin  says “Spruce budworms kill the forest, which then leads to a flush of vegetation of benefit to moose. More moose means more wolves, and caribou don’t do well when there’s a lot of wolves around.”

The paper was published this week in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The outbreaks of forest insects are projected to increase under climate change,  posing further challenges for woodland caribou conservation.

The study also showed that the impact on caribou was magnified by forestry companies establishing roads and trails for salvage logging after fires, and also following such events as pine beetle infestations killing vast numbers of trees.

McLoughlin  says, “Taking out dead trees is usually thought of as a benign activity, but what we showed here was that it’s definitely not benign for caribou. It magnifies the indirect moose-wolf-caribou interaction through disruption.”