One of nine barren-ground caribou herds in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The herd migrates seasonally across the central Canadian Arctic, moving between calving grounds on the tundra and wintering ranges in the boreal forest.
Barren-ground caribou undertake some of the longest terrestrial migrations on Earth, and the Bathurst herd historically numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The herd has experienced significant population decline in recent decades, raising concerns among Indigenous communities who have relied on these caribou for subsistence and cultural practices for millennia, as well as among wildlife managers monitoring Arctic ecosystem health.
