Animal Populations
- Yukon River chum salmon stocks have generally declined. Numbers
of chum spawning annually in the Fishing Branch River declined
from up to 350,000 in the early 1970s to 60,000 or fewer in the
1980s and 1990s.
Alsek River sockeye stocks are at moderate levels and are stable.
Chinook salmon stocks in the Yukon and Alsek Rivers are below
internationally-set target levels but are not declining.
- In some lakes, lake trout are depleted from over-fishing.
Actions taken to allow population recovery include reduction of
commercial fishing and restriction of the allowable catch for
sport fishing.
- There are two Grant's caribou herds in the Yukon: the Porcupine
and the Fortymile herds. Gwitchin, Inuvialuit and Inupiat from
13 communities in Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories
rely on the Porcupine Herd for food. Calves are usually born in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the herd is
vulnerable to potential oil and gas development activity in the
Refuge. (More on the Porcupine Caribou Herd)
- The Fortymile Caribou Herd, which numbered hundreds of thousands
in 1900, has an estimated 1995 population of 20,000. The herd
is being harvested primarily in Alaska at a rate that is not considered
sustainable. An international working group is addressing this
issue.
- The total population of 22 woodland caribou herds is 30,000
to 35,000. In 1994 three herds, Carcross, Aishihik and Chisana,
were decreasing and three herds, Tay River, Finlayson and Wolf
Lake, were increasing.
- The Yukon moose population is stable at about 60,000. Moose
populations have declined in the Aishihik and Carcross areas since
1980, while moose populations increased in the Nisutlin area during
the 1980s.
- Wolves number approximately 4,500 in the Yukon. A wildlife
conservation program to reverse the decline of caribou and moose
populations in the Aishihik-Kluane region included the start of
a temporary wolf control program in 1993 to reduce wolf predation
on these ungulate species.
- There are 6,000 to 7,000 grizzly bears and 10,000 black bears
in the Yukon. Grizzlies are categorized as vulnerable world-wide,
but Yukon populations are considered stable.
- Thirty-four species of swans, geese and ducks spend part of
their annual cycle in the Yukon.
