"Let the Poor Beasts Alone": Caribou Reintroduction and Public Environmental Attitudes in Maine, 1986-1993

• In Event: Life and Death in the Public Eye: Animal Bodies, Environmental Culture, and Regional Identity

Abstract

In 1986 a group of private citizens in Maine formed the Maine Caribou Transplant Corporation to relocate a number of caribou from Newfoundland to New England in hopes of reintroducing the species into the Maine woods. They felt that humans were responsible for the animal's disappearance from the state and needed to correct this historic environmental injustice. To fund this effort the corporation implemented several fundraising efforts, the largest being the "Adopt a Caribou" program. The public, businesses, schoolchildren, and towns offered donations in return for the rights to name individual caribou, the opportunity to decorate the animal's tracking collar, and updates about the animal's wellbeing.

Shortly after the animals were transplanted from Canada to Maine, however, it became apparent that reintroduction would be much more difficult than originally thought. While some caribou perished en route, others died in the holding pen before their release into the wild. And once released the caribou quickly succumbed to parasites and attacks from bears and coyotes. Although the Maine Caribou Transplant Corporation and its wildlife biologists were aware of these hazards, they badly underestimated them, resulting in a public relations fiasco. This paper attempts to understand how the public engaged with the caribou throughout the reintroduction effort by examining the corporation's fundraising efforts as well as newspaper articles and editorials in which the public debated the treatment of animals and human interference with the environment.

Author

• Ian Jesse, University of Maine