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Wildlife board keeps talks inside the boardroom

Public shut out of polar bear quota discussions

JOHN THOMPSON

The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is working on a formal tracking system that will allow communities to cash in unused polar bear tags, in some cases, but those talks were unexpectedly held behind closed doors. (PHOTO COURTESY OF MARKUS DYCK)

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When the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board met in Iqaluit last week the most controversial subject on the agenda was discussed behind closed doors: changes in community polar bear quotas.

The members discussed, in camera, whether to give additional polar bear tags to communities in 2006.

The Nunavut land claims agreement says the board's recommendations must be kept secret until government ministers are given a chance to accept or reject the board''s findings.

But in the past, the wildlife board held such discussions in public, even if the decisions made by the board were done in private.

Earlier in last week's meeting, board members debated the merits of awarding extra narwhal kills to a community, and made that decision in public. (See story on page 6.)

Joe Tigullaraq, the chair of the wildlife board, later said that this open discussion was a mistake.

"That was an oversight on my part as the chair," he said. "The decisions on the narwhals really should have been done in camera.

"In the past, because we were making decisions out in the public, some of the decisions made by the board were being published, putting the minister in an awkward position, because he or she was about to make a decision."

But Glenn Williams, a wildlife specialist with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said holding such discussions in camera is against the spirit of a public body like the wildlife board.

"It should be functioning in an open and public way," he said in an interview.

The wildlife board gets money each year from the federal government to be spent on public hearings. That amount is now over $2.5 million.

But the board has never held a fully public hearing.

Instead, the board spent its money on consultations with hamlets, regional hunting organizations, and HTOs, in connection with Nunavut's new Wildlife Act in December 2003, and to develop draft regulations afterward.

"Those consultations are not cheap," Tigullaraq said.

Tigullaraq said the polar bear issue was "hotly debated" at the recent meeting but not resolved, because more information is required for the board to make a decision. Board members should make a decision over the next week by teleconference, he said.

The issue relates to how and when communities may re-use leftover polar bear tags at the end of a year.

A new "flexible credit system" lets communities save unused hunting tags as credits, to be cashed in later to increase their total allowable harvest. Communities also receive credits for defence and accidental kills. And communities who share the same polar bear population may swap credits.

Female bears get more value than males in the system, because they produce offspring.

"It'd be like if you're paid a wage this week, and come next week you decide to spend it all," said Mitch Taylor, the GN's director of wildlife, in an interview following the wildlife board meeting.

This is the first season with the new system in effect, and 12 communities want to cash in their credits to boost their total allowable harvest in mid-season.

In many cases, the credits are meant to replace the tags lost from bears that were shot in self-defence.

But some communities want to cash in surplus credits to boost their total allowable harvest.

For example, Kugluktuk's HTO asked to cash in six credits, doubling their total allowable harvest from six to 12 bears. Similarly, Igloolik's HTO wants to boost their harvest from four to eight bears, and Cambridge Bay from three to four.

The wildlife board's director of wildlife management, Joe Justus, argued against granting these requests in his written submission to the board.

The board did accept the request of one community - the one they forgot. Cape Dorset was left off the agenda by mistake.

To make amends for this, the board approved the community's request to cash in a credit for a hunting tag, to make up for a defence kill earlier this season.

Recommendations made by the wildlife board are sent to Nunavut's environment minister, who has 30 days to accept or reject the board's decision. The recommendations are also sent to the appropriate federal ministers, who have 60 days to accept or reject a decision.

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