page_title: Boreal woodland caribou
section_title: Reproduction
hierarchical_section_title: Boreal woodland caribou / Reproduction
caption_attribution_description: English: Caribou forestier
context_page_description: The boreal woodland caribou, also known as woodland caribou, boreal forest caribou and forest-dwelling caribou, is a North American subspecies of the reindeer with the vast majority of animals in Canada. Unlike the Porcupine caribou and barren-ground caribou, boreal woodland caribou are primarily, but not always, sedentary.
  The boreal woodland caribou is the largest of the caribou subspecies and is darker in colour than the barren-ground caribou. Valerius Geist, specialist on large North American mammals, described the "true" woodland caribou as ”the uniformly dark, small-manned type with the frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers" which is "scattered thinly along the southern rim of North American caribou distribution.” Geist asserts that ”the true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention”, but suggests that this urgency is compromised by the inclusion of the Newfoundland caribou, the Labrador caribou, and Osborn's caribou in the Rangifer tarandus caribou subspecies. In Geist's opinion, the inclusion of these additional populations obscures the precarious position of the “true” woodland caribou.
context_section_description: Female woodland caribou reach maturity at 16 months, and males at 18-20. Males usually do not breed before reaching three or four years of age, due to the hierarchical nature of the herd and competition with older males. Their reproduction rate is low. Breeding occurs at the end of September and the beginning of October. Calves are born in mid-June. Precise dates may vary based on geographical region. For conservation and herd management purposes, migratory herds are often defined in terms of female natal philopatry or natal homing – the tendency to return to natal calving areas. Female boreal woodland caribou and their newborn calves are more vulnerable to predation than migratory caribou, as they often calve separate from the rest of the herd and remain solitary until mid-winter.
caption: A woodland caribou calf
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