If the Governments of Canada and the USA are truly serious about maintaining, restoring and dare I whisper(increasing) the Woodland Caribou population of North America, then they have to shelve wolf killing campaigns and instead focus on maintaining and recreating unbroken forest habitat that is not pock marked by thousands of oil and gas drilling sites, roads and other human infrastructure..............The abominable experiment carried out in west-central Alberta, Canada where 890 wolves were purposely killed to see if Caribou populations would increase was a failure both in terms of objective(increasing caribou) and ethics(slaughtering a top trophic carnivore..................As an old boss of mine used to say to us: WAKE UP, START DOING,,,START ACCOMPLISHING

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http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201412/killing-890-wolves-learn-about-them-somethings-wrong

Killing 890 Wolves to Learn About Them: Something's Wrong

By Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. on December, 02, 2014 in Animal Emotions

An "experimental" study performed under the guise of conservation involved killing 890 Canadian wolves (and other animals) using aerial gunning, trapping, and strychnine poisoning. This research and publication represents the moral failure of the Alberta government, participating universities, the Canadian Journal of Zoology, and the scientists, and it didn't work.  Read More

Managing wolves (Canis lupus) to recover threatened woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Alberta

Dave Hervieux,^a Mark Hebblewhite,^b Dave Stepnisky,^a Michelle Bacon,^a Stan Boutin^c

^aResource Management - Operations Division, Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, Grande Prairie, AB T8V 6J4, Canada.

^bWildlife Biology Program, Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA.

^cDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada.

Corresponding author: Mark Hebblewhite (e-mail: mark.hebblewhite@umontana.edu).

Published on the web 19 November 2014.

Received May 30, 2014. Accepted October 21, 2014.

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Canadian Journal of Zoology, 2014, 92(12): 1029-1037, 10.1139/cjz-2014-0142

In this paperTop of pageIntroductionMaterials and methodsResultsDiscussionReferences

ABSTRACT

Across Canada, woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou (Gmelin, 1788)) populations are declining because of human-induced changes to food webs that are resulting in apparent competition-induced increases in predator-caused caribou mortality. We tested the hypothesis that wolf (Canis lupus L., 1758) population reduction could reverse declines in a woodland caribou population following a BACI (before-after-control-impact) design conducted over a 12-year period in west-central Alberta, Canada. We monitored annual survival for 172 adult female caribou and calf recruitment from 2000 through 2012 and conducted a provincial government delivered wolf population reduction program annually during the winters of 2005–2006 to 2012 (inclusive) in an area centered on the Little Smoky range. Wolf removal translated to a 4.6% increase in mean population growth rate of the Little Smoky population mostly through improvements in calf recruitment. In contrast, the Red Rock Prairie Creek control population exhibited a 4.7% decline. Although the wolf population reduction program appeared to stabilize the Little Smoky population, it did not lead to population increase, however, with λ remaining approximately equal to 1. Therefore, we recommend, if required, predation management be combined with effective habitat conservation and long-term planning to effect the recovery of species, such as woodland caribou, which are declining as a result of habitat-mediated apparent competition.