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Gjoa Haven sets scope on muskox sport hunt

King William Island Muskox tags to replace lost polar bear hunt

ODILE NELSON

Gjoa Haven has sold three of its eight King William Island muskox tags to a Northwest Territories outfitter in an attempt to replace money lost after the Nunavut government's 2001 moratorium on the McClintock Channel polar bear hunt.

The sale marks the first time the GN and the Gjoa Haven Hunters and Trappers Organization will allow a sports muskox hunt to take place on King William Island.

The island is home to a small Inuit community of about 900 and at least 150 muskox.

Louis Kamookak, head of Gjoa Haven's HTO, said the venture with Yellowknife's Adventure Northwest, which used to purchase polar bear tags from the community, will provide much-needed jobs.

"Once there was a moratorium on the polar bear hunt we no longer could do sports hunting there. For guides, our main goal was to replace that hunt," he said.

Until two years ago, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board gave out a dozen polar bear hunting tags in the McClintock Channel each year.

The three nearby communities of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak divided the 12 polar bear tags between them and Gjoa Haven would then sell a portion of these to outfitting companies.

Adventures Northwest normally secured a tag from the HTO for $15,000 to $20,000.

But Nunavut's department of sustainable development froze polar bear hunting in the channel after a study found the animal's population had dropped to about 250.

The DSD wants the channel's bear population to increase to roughly 500.

Gjoa Haven has been able to maintain some hunting revenue since the 2001 moratorium through its muskox tags on the mainland.

The HTO has 125 muskox tags for the mainland and typically reserves 32 of these for sports outfitters every year, Kamookak said.

The mainland hunt, however, can be hundreds of kilometres away from Gjoa Haven and the long, cold travelling distance can dissuade southern hunters.

So last year the HTO decided to ask the NWMB to increase its King William Island muskox tags from five to eight.

The NWMB had previously only allowed five muskox tags a year on the island. But a 2002 ground survey of the island's muskox showed the population was increasing. So last December, the NWMB approved the tag increase.

Boyd Warner, owner and operator of Adventure Northwest, agrees with Kamookak that the new hunt will provide much-needed revenue for the community.

"We're very excited they've allowed an increase in the quotas," Warner said. "We're very hopeful that this will replace the lost polar bear hunt."

Of course, as with any new undertaking, there are a few details to work out.

Warner would like to see the hunting season moved from an October start to April - when the weather is warmer. But local wildlife officials have vetoed this idea so far, he said, and this has cost him clients.

And for his part, Kamookak wants limits set on the amount of meat hunters can take away with them. The HTO, he said, plans to process the majority of meat in Gjoa Haven at a plant it hopes to open by September.

The meat would then be distributed to the community, he said.

Warner however, said though hunters typically give meat to the community, the existing contracts stipulate that once a hunter takes a muskox it becomes their property.

Yet, according to Kamookak, the whole community is behind the venture.

"We [the HTO] consulted the community and we asked the community what they thought and everybody's in support of this. Everybody knows what it will mean."

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