The Peary caribou, the smallest of all caribou, occurs only in the Queen Charlotte Islands of Canada's High Arctic. It is the color of pale pewter, and the small herds of these compact little animals waft across the landscape like ghosts. The northern archipelago is very barren with far more rock than tundra, and so even in open country (and it's all open country) the caribou blend perfectly with the background. Their population have declined by some ninety percent over the last three decades. In addition to living in one of the harshest environments in the world, the species faces further pressures from hunting, non-renewable resource development and contamination of the arctic ecosystem. To me, it is a sin against Creation to render extinct something that is so unique and has taken so long to evolve. I realize that this is happening every day in the tropics, but when there are so few species in the Arctic, it seems even more unforgivable. - RB