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The last remaining herd of cross-border mountain caribou is now effectively extinct after an aerial count found only three survived the winter, all of them female.

The alarming census of the South Selkirk population of southern mountain caribou, placing it at a number meaning de facto extinction, comes after years of warnings from scientists and conservation groups.

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Government biologists twice did the head count this spring, once in ideal conditions in fresh snow to help tracking from above, and found the alarming decline, said Mark Hebblewhite, a Canadian wildlife biologist at the University of Montana and a science adviser to the federal government.

“Last year there was 11 and now there are three. And critically, there are no males this year. Without a male, it’s game over.”

The South Selkirk herd has the distinction of being among the southernmost caribou in the world and last to roam into the lower 48 states of the United States, making it a big deal south of the border where it is seen as a species extinction.