The Porcupine Caribou herd is the most researched herd in the world, says Whitehorse caribou biologist Don Russell.

Don Russell prepares to equip a caribou calf belonging to the endangered Chisana herd with a radio transmitter to help track its movements. (photo: Kathi Egli)

He should know. He's spent much of the past 30 years studying the Porcupine herd. Now he's taking that knowledge and experience into the international arena.

Russell retired recently from Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service, but not from caribou research. In fact, he's moving more and more into the international sphere.

"That's the exciting challenge right now," he says.

Russell is one of three coordinators of the CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment (CARMA) Network. Rangifer is the species name for both caribou and reindeer, a domesticated version of the animal.

CARMA was launched late in 2004 and is still in the early stages of development. It is a joint effort by university scientists, government scientists and managers, industry, and community organizations. Canadian co-management bodies like the Porcupine Caribou Management Board have been key players in CARMA.

It is truly international. The three coordinators are located in Canada, Alaska, and Norway. Membership includes representatives from all the countries of the Arctic Council except Sweden, which has no wild reindeer.

The idea is to coordinate caribou research and monitoring so that information can be transferred easily from one geographical area to another. That will reduce duplication of effort and allow researchers in one part of the north to build on the information already acquired in other parts of the north.

The lessons learned and techniques developed in studying the Porcupine herd over the past decades will speed CARMA's work, Russell says.

"The more you know about one herd, the more you know about them all."

For now, CARMA is restricting its activities to wild caribou, Russell says, although it has established a partnership with the Association of World Reindeer Herders to look for areas of cooperation and collaboration.

"There's a lot of things we found we have in common," he says.

CARMA's research and monitoring program will cut across disciplines and approaches to knowledge, says Russell. It will include community knowledge, social science, and physical sciences, with a strong focus on the interaction between humans and caribou.

CARMA's mission statement is, "Through cooperation, both geographically and across disciplines, to monitor and assess the impacts of global change on the human/Rangifer system across the CircumArctic."

Global change is the key. Caribou are feeling the impacts of development, of changes in human activity, of the spread of contaminants into their ranges. But most of all they are feeling the impacts of climate change.

"Climate change is insidious," Russell says. "I think that's going to be the next big challenge."

The change won't be uniform, he says. It will have different impacts in different parts of the Arctic.

For the Porcupine Caribou herd, for example, earlier spring warming presents problems for cows trying to reach their calving grounds. Other herds are affected by increased snow or by ice from winter thaws.

Each caribou herd occupies a niche, a particular place with a particular set of natural and human-generated conditions, and each is adapted to that niche. As a result, climate change will affect each herd differently.

"There are going to be winners and there are going to be losers," Russell says.

Climate change is a driving force behind CARMA's first major undertaking -- a two-year research plan under the banner of the International Polar Year (IPY), which begins in 2007.

The goal, says Russell, is to develop standard sets of indicators and protocols that will be used for two years of intensive monitoring of representative herds around the globe.

"There are some herds we know a ton about," he says, "and some where we know zero."

By the end of the IPY project, the knowledge level will have evened out and CARMA should have the tools for effective ongoing monitoring of the world's caribou.

For more information about the CARMA Network, go to www.rangifer.net/carma. For information about the International Polar Year, go to www.ipy.org or www.ipy-api.ca.