GPS tracking gives snowmobilers entrance to supportive B.C. caribou habitat

Members of dual B.C. Interior snowmobile clubs will get access to tools of a province’s backcountry that were formerly off limits, as provincial biologists use GPS to lane a movements of a shrinking caribou flock that relies on a imperishable habitat.

The entrance will be formed on maps updated daily to uncover that areas snowmobilers can use within the Central Selkirk Snowmobile Management Area, that is nearby Nakusp, about 150 kilometres north of Castlegar.

The area was sealed to snowmobiling in an bid to save a threatened Central Selkirk caribou herd. Provincial biologists counted 227 animals in a flock in 1997, though this year they found usually 25.

The flock tends to hang together, withdrawal immeasurable swathes of a area uninhabited at any given time as a caribou pierce around, so snowmobilers have been pulling for a rotating closure system.

“This new, innovative record provides us with a event for continued snowmobile access, while minimizing reeling to caribou herds,” pronounced Donegal Wilson, executive executive of a British Columbia Snowmobile Federation, in a created statement.

The GPS equipment was already propitious to a few members of a flock by provincial biologists in 2017, according to a recover from a Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

Members of a dual snowmobile clubs that will have entrance won’t be means to see a tangible GPS coordinates, though rather maps prepared any day to prove that areas would sojourn off limits.

Membership required

To entrance a maps and to snowmobile in a available areas, backcountry users must buy annual memberships with possibly a Trout Lake Recreational Club or a Arrow Lake Ridge Riders.

According to a method release, charge officers patrolling the Central Selkirk Snowmobile Management Area can direct to see print ID and a bar membership label — anyone but a compulsory papers could face a $575 fine. Using a off-limits area could also lead to a $575 fine.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/central-selkirk-caribou-gps-1.5384921?cmp=rss