Source: Radio-Canada – Marc-André Landry

Published on August 4, 2020

Minister Pierre Dufour hopes to announce soon a specific plan for the Val-d’Or woodland caribou herd, now reduced to six animals.

The Minister says he is in active discussion with various stakeholders who would be part of this solution.

We want to be sure of the project to be put in place and, if we can reach an agreement with all the parties involved, I can assure you that it will be done very quickly,” he said.

It should be remembered that one caribou from this herd died on July 7 in the enclosure set up this spring by the Ministère de la Faune, des Parcs et des Forêts.

Despite the urgency of the situation, Pierre Dufour defends his ministry’s strategy, which would have been delayed in part by the COVID-19 crisis.

A process has been put in place, with the basic enclosure at the outset. The second stage was to be the expansion of the enclosure, to arrive with the unveiling of our strategy for woodland caribou in 2021. We had reached that point, but the situation with COVID-19 caused a delay problem. It’s easy from the outside to say that we’re not moving fast enough,” he says.