July 7, 2006
Bylot's gigantic gaggle
of geese
"You could hear
them from one mile away"
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Mathias
Qaunaq, left, and Simon Sangoya carefully pack goose eggs for the trip from
Bylot Island back to Pond Inlet. For a few weeks, Bylot Island hosts the largest
colony of Greater Snow Geese in the Arctic. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF CATHERINE GAGNON)
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Each June about 60,000
greater snow geese descend on the southwestern corner of Bylot Island, turning
one patch of tundra into the largest colony of the geese in the Arctic.
That many birds make quite
a squawk. And this year, their presence gave a group of elders and youth from
Pond Inlet and visiting scientists an opportunity to chatter about what they
know of the geese and other wildlife.
"You could hear them
from one mile away," said Simon Sangoya, 19.
He was the eldest of about
10 youth who camped out on the beach with elders and scientists earlier this
month, from June 11 to 17, in Sirmilik National Park, about 15 kilometres from
the geese colony.
The trip aimed to bring
new understanding between scientists who have studied the ecosystem of Bylot
Island for several years, and elders who have witnessed changes occur over a
far longer period of time.
The project was started
by Catherine Gagnon, a masters student in natural resource management at the
Université du Québec in Rimouski.
One big change is a growing
number of geese, fuelled by the growth of the agriculture industry in Quebec,
where the migrating geese spend part of the year.
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Pond
Inlet elder Annie Paingut Peterloosie sews goose wings together for decoration
during a land trip to Bylot Island this month.
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Further down the migration
path, along the St. Lawrence River, the number of greater snow geese counted
during a census in the spring leaped from 417,000 in 1993 to 957,600 in 2004.
That population boom has
led to geese destroying the tundra in other parts of the North. Researchers
want to know if that will happen on Bylot Island, too.
But so far there's no sign
of that happening at the Bylot colony - just plenty of birds, which meant there
was plenty of eggs and goose flesh for the campers to eat.
That food brought back
memories for elders of how those animals were once hunted.
Greater snow geese spend
several weeks on Bylot Island breeding and moulting - a stage of their lives
when they shed their feathers and are unable to fly. That's when a group of
hunters would circle the birds and herd them.
Usually hunters would herd
the birds to a convenient frozen lake. But the group heard that in the past,
hunters herded the birds all the way across the straight to Baffin Island and
back to their camp near Pond Inlet.
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Rachel
Panipakoocho looks into a box carefully packed with goose eggs, just after egg
picking.
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When the birds tired, hunters
would pick the geese up and carry them.
The cuddly moments would
end when they reached their destination, however, where Inuit would spear or
club the birds. It's food, after all.
Elders also spoke of how
to trap foxes on the ice, by digging a hole and covering it with a thin sheet
of ice covered with frozen blood.
And they spoke of how foxes
venture out onto the sea ice in March and April each year.
That's of interest to researchers
such as Dominique Berteaux, who has studied the population of about 110 fox
on Bylot Island during the summer since 2003. Previously he had believed fox
spent their whole winter on the ice.
To put this to the test,
scientists have attached radio collars to fox this year, to follow their annual
movements throughout the year.
Berteaux counts the number
of red fox on Bylot Island, which have appeared more frequently over the last
few decades.
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Rachel
Ootoova, left, and Moses Amarualik relax at camp. Behind them, Elijah Panipakoocho
builds a box to carry goose eggs back to Pond Inlet.
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"The elders, they
all tell us that 50 years ago, they saw the first red fox," Berteaux said.
It could be one of many
species to venture further north if the climate continues to warm, he said.
That could be one threat
to the arctic fox population. But there could be other, more complicated, pressures
at work as well.
In Scandinavian countries
such as Sweden, Norway and Finland, red foxes threaten to squeeze out the arctic
foxes.
In those countries, one
reason for the decline in arctic foxes could be, oddly enough, reindeer husbandry.
That's because the reindeer
industry in those countries has taken its toll on the tundra, and shrunken the
habitat for lemmings.
Lemmings are an important
food source for arctic foxes. So when reindeer push out the lemmings, the fox
populations take a dive, too.
The spread of rabies through
the fox populations also likely plays a role.
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Elder
Gamailie Kilukishak explains the old seal hunting technique of mimicking the
seal, allowing him to sneak close enough to kill it with a harpoon. Elders also
shared their knowledge of Bylot Island's fox population, which researchers will
test by tracking the movement of the animals with radio collars this winter.
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These are the sort of complex
relationships between different animals and plants that the researchers on Bylot
Island hope to chart out in the years to come, Berteaux said.
"We're trying to understand
how the tundra ecosystem works."
Other researchers are studying
various shorebirds, such as plovers, tiny birds with long legs. These birds
are declining in population across North America. "No one knows why,"
Berteaux said.
The campers also visited
a Dorset archeological site called Ikpiugalik, and learned how elders used to
stalk seals. Evenings were passed with Gagnon, the group's leader, playing the
fiddle, accompanied by an elder on the accordion.
The project received support
from the Government of Nunavut's Department of Culture, Language, Elders and
Youth, the Continental Polar Shelf Project, the Nunavut Wildlife Management
Board, Parks Canada, Arctic Net and Polar Sea Adventures.
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