Isabella on capture day
Courtesy Satellite Collar Project

Meet the caribou cows that you will be following this year on their spring migration. Does it a coincidence that all the collared caibou are cows?

The range where the Porcupine caribou move about is REALLY big- about 266,000 square kilometers -over 100,000 square miles- so using the satellite collar transmissions really helps to find groups of caribou during the census. During the census, it is the cows which form large groups near the north coast, while the bulls tend to be in the foothills.

The first group of collared caribous were given their names by a group of school children from the northern communities. Isabella was named by the project biologist, Dorothy Cooley. She is named for Dorothy's grandmother! Trudy and Lupine were named by a young summer student who worked with the project in the summer of 2000. Don't you love those names!

You might notice that Cupid, Lupine, Lucky and Lynetta's collars are past expiration date. They are still sending signals but could stop at any time. There are six new collars waiting to be used this coming March. We will probably try to recapture Cupid, Donner, and Lupine, and deploy the other 3 on random cow caribou.

Study the table above. What can you learn from it?

1. Why do you think they choose to collar only cows (female caribou)?
2. Do you think the caribou are collared on these dates for a particular reason?
3. Many of the caribou are collared near the same date. Some were not. Why do you think this is the case?
4. If you could name the caribou for this study, what would you name them, and why?

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