Despite compelling evidence that caribou will disappear without mature forests, a recent report risks their survival by giving cover for government to ramp up wolf killing while allowing industry to continue destroying critical habitat. The authors claim that “intensive population treatments” — aerial gunning and strychnine poisoning of wolves, hunting of cougar, moose and deer, and maternal pens for caribou — are necessary until we Canadians understand that unless we use natural resources more responsibly caribou will vanish.

The report Saving Endangered Species Using Adaptive Management not only lacks scientific rigor in its design, but should also be questioned for side-stepping an ethical review process that would have prohibited its publication. Unlike provincial biologists, academics are not allowed to conduct inhumane research, let alone publish it. But…