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GN, hunters hammer out new polar bear quotas

"All the older people who hunt bears, they're the ones that are saying there are way too many polar bears now"

JANE GEORGE

If Inuit Qaujimatuqangit is worked into a set of MOUs covering Nunavut's 10 polar bear zones, bear harvesting quotas would be increased for most Nunavut regions. (FILE PHOTO)

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Polar bear harvesting quotas in Nunavut will be increased in 2005 - but only if Inuit Qaujimatuqangit is incorporated into the territory's first long-awaited, made-in-Nunavut polar bear management plan.

For the past three years, a working group made up of representatives from the Nunavut government, hunters and trappers organizations, and Inuit groups has been hammering out new memoranda-of-understanding on bear harvesting.

These memoranda-of-understanding, or "MOUs," are agreements between governments and community hunter and trapper organizations on the management of polar bear populations in each of Nunavut's 10 polar bear zones.

Delays in approving MOUs have been especially frustrating for hunters in Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq, who complain the size of their polar bear population has grown out of control.

"All the older people who hunt bears, they're the ones that are saying there are way too many polar bears now. They really know because they've been hunting their whole life," said Sam Nuqingaq of Qikiqtarjuaq's Nattivak HTO.

Population estimates done by scientists are generally more accurate right after their surveys are finished, but the last such population survey in the Baffin Bay area was done back in 1997, and hasn't been updated.

That survey in Baffin Bay produced a number showing there may be 2,100 polar bears in the area, making its population one of the healthiest in Nunavut. But hunters now say there are even more bears in the area. Polar bear biologists don't dispute this information, either.

"They're seeing more bears on the land in the community, I have no reason to doubt it," said Mitch Taylor, a polar biologist, who is now on leave from the GN so that he can work for the Nunavut Employees Union. "They're not only saying that there are plenty of bears, they're saying there are too many. They're saying it could be getting to a density that there could be a disease that could be spread, or it could cause starvation."

Taylor said people in North Baffin communities now report more nuisance bears, more bears robbing meat caches, and more bears causing damage to cabins.

"When we do our population inventory studies, we're not back in that area for 15 years," Taylor said. "The best information we have is what the hunters are telling us."

The growing acceptance of hunters' observations may change how polar bear quotas and management plans are set - not just in North Baffin, but throughout Nunavut.

The GN is considering a policy that would see polar bear quotas based on purely scientific numbers for the first six years, and on IQ for the next eight years.

"For the second half of the [15-year] interval, we would use IQ, and the hunters would tell us how we're doing - in which case we wouldn't change much, or if they've seen a decline, we might actually reduce quotas," Taylor said.

Right now, Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Qikirtarjuaq each have a quota of 64 bears. Taylor said they're asking for a "substantive increase" in their next MOU.

Similar increases are also being sought for the Melville, Gulf of Boothia, Foxe Basin, Hudson Bay, Lancaster Sound and Davis Strait zones.

If these increases are approved, it would mean that a "risk-based" management strategy - a policy of sticking with low quotas - has gone out the door.

A "risk-based" strategy is supposed to avoid the risks of over-hunting by using the lowest possible population estimate when setting quotas.

This strategy was promoted after 2001, when a moratorium was placed on any polar bear hunting in the depleted M'Clintock Channel population.

Once the MOUs are signed by local and regional HTOs, and the GN, these "records of consultations" will then go to the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which will send its recommendations to Nunavut's minister of the environment for final approval.

Most of Nunavut's MOUs are expected to be ready for the NWMB's next board meetings, in either May or September.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. hopes the MOUs are approved as soon as possible.

"I don't think it's stalling, but when it was time for a moratorium, "poof," it happened," said Bert Dean of NTI's wildlife division.

The NWMB says it will take IQ into "high consideration" because it shares the GN's goal of using IQ.

But the NWMB is still likely to be wary of any changes that can't stand the scrutiny of people in jurisdictions that overlap Nunavut - such as the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Quebec or Greenland, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"IQ is understood and accepted in Nunavut, but it's not understood and accepted across Canada and the world," Mitch Taylor said.

Nunavut has a U.S.-approved polar bear sports hunt, but under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, bear skins may only be imported from areas of Canada that have healthy bear populations and a sustainable hunt - and can prove it to the satisfaction of U.S. authorities.

About 450 polar bear tags are distributed each year throughout Nunavut.

Some are used for American sports hunters who each pay up to $20,000 U.S. for the thrill of killing a polar bear. The annual sports hunt is worth an estimated $8 million a year, most of which stays in Nunavut.

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