Mountain woodland caribou were once abundant in the temperate forests of Canada and the United States. 

Now, because of logging, roads, and other human disruptions, the caribou are declining across their historic range.  Indeed, mountain woodland caribou may be the most endangered large mammal in the lower 48 states, with only a small herd persisting in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington.

The caribou live at high altitudes, and survive the winter by feeding on lichen growing on old-growth forests.  Caribou are easily startled by humans -- even by the sound of motors a mile or more away. 

Clearcutting and logging roads are a particular problem in the Selkirk Mountains, where both the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and the State of Idaho authorize extensive industrial logging operations.

In additional, winter motorized recreation is posing even larger challenges for caribou.  Increasingly powerful snowmachines can now access high-altitude areas in the Selkirks that were previously isolated, and cause caribou to flee their winter refuges.  In expending scarce energy and abandoning their safe areas by having to flee snowmobile intrusion, caribou survival and reproductive success is reduced.

Ensuring the survival of the Serkirk woodland caribou requires federal and state land managers to place caribou critical habitat off-limits to further logging, roads, or motorized intrusions.