Simple miscalculations and misreadings can lead to mishaps, and this mishap led to the death of 463 wolves in British Columbia. A government-sponsored cull was established that meant to save endangered Mountain Caribou, a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, but failed to do so. The deaths of the wolves have come in vain due to statistical error according to a group of scientists. 

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As of today, there are roughly 46,800 mountain caribou remained. This will be both for southern and central ecotypes, which is also 1,825 remaining. These endangered species now only live in British Columbia after the total disappearing from the United States. With their ability to drift silently through snowdrifts, they have named the mountain caribou as the grey ghosts of western Canada's alpine region. Its rapid decline has alarmed both government officials and biologists, which prompted them to have an aggressive response. 

The Arguments 

Last 2015, British Columbia placed a bounty on wolves, which the Canadian province believed to be the threat to the ailing herds. And by last year in Spring, the Government was entangled in a series of discussions concerning the conservation of mountain caribou. The endangered ungulates depend on the old forests targeted for logging that also grow on top of highly desired oil-and-gas deposits. This turned into heated arguments between industry advocates and conservationists. 

And amidst the clash between the opposing organizations, a group of researchers, led by a caribou biologist Robert Serrouya, published a paper offering a practical solution: Killing wolves and penning pregnant caribou could help save the caribou population. The research made a tremendous fuss on Canadian media.

Breaking the study 

According to Viktoria Wagner, a plant ecologist and statistician at the University of Alberta and an author of the rebuttal, the downfall of the study started with the statistics. On the data, she examined its findings more closely and noticed that the study considered only 12 populations (and six control populations) which is low sample size for the case. When she excavates deeper into the study, she found even more irregularities.

The most obvious error in the paper was its oversight of a null model, the recent paper argues. "A null model represents this scenario of uncertainty, the possibility that none of these predictors would be important," Wagner says. When the researchers ran the null model, they found out that the solutions proposed in the last year's study, which subsequently spiralled into a policy, had no statistical support.

The death of 463 wolves represents an enormous tragedy that still significantly affects the caribou, as pointed out by researchers in the rebuttal. "That's irreplaceable on the timescale that we have left to save the caribou," Darimont told in a report. Despite having the answer comes a year later, the researchers hope that it will influence future policy regarding caribou management.

The Conclusion: 

The research concluded, "Killing wolves in endangered caribou habitat is not something the B.C. government can do for two years, five years, or even ten years to ensure that caribou herds persist, while at the same time continuing to allow their critical habitat to be fractured by new development like industrial logging and pipelines."

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