In preparation of developing a recovery program, the federal government ordered a study in 2011. It met with leading caribou experts to determine the connection between the threshold or the disturbance rate and the chance of survival for a caribou population. The conclusion the scientists came to was that if the disturbance rate is 35%, the herd's chance of survival is 60%, which is not high.
The mathematical model indicates that as the disturbance threshold increases, the herd's chance of survival plummets. The more the disturbance rate drops below 35%, the higher the chance of survival. The mathematical model was built by scientists, taking into account all the data generated about the caribou population across Canada and it contributed to this conclusion.