Am sure it will all get chalked up to global warming/climate change......
That might not be far off the mark, or at least partially responsible. My friend Seth Kantner, who was born on the Kobuk River and has spent his entire life in the Kotzebue area, notes that at his (once his parents) cabin site where he was born and raised, what was once a bare tussock-tundra flat out in front of the cabin, is now 10' spruce.
It's big country tho, so some habitat change might not affect the caribou numbers much, unless it widely affects the forage species as well.
