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Fate of Peary caribou sparks heated debate

Hunters, scientists at odds about health of herds

JOHN THOMPSON

Simon Idlout, an elder from Resolute who attended a special meeting held by the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board last week in Iqaluit, said he laughs at the idea of Peary caribou one day dying out. “It’s like a miracle, how Peary caribou multiply,” he said. (PHOTO BY JOHN THOMPSON)

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That question provoked some of the most heated debates during a special meeting held by the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board in Iqaluit last week.

Population levels of the stocky animals, which roam in herds scattered across the High Arctic islands, have declined dramatically over the last three decades, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

Population estimates conducted during the 1970s pegged Peary caribou numbers at 50,000. Current counts suggest about 8,000 exist today, although Inuit hunters have disputed these numbers as incomplete.

To address this decline, biologists with the Government of Nunavut want to introduce a total allowable harvest, or TAH, of 66 Peary caribou.

“It’s well understood that numbers of Peary caribou are declining across their entire range,” said Debbie Jenkins, a biologist with Nunavut’s Department of the Environment.

She warned wildlife board members that “the evidence is overwhelming that the Peary caribou population on Somerset-Prince of Wales Islands is endangered, and that the number of Peary caribou currently on Devon Island is extremely low.”

Jenkins also said the government proposal is based on “liberal” estimates, and that recent population surveys suggest that Peary caribou populations could be even lower than believed.

Setting the TAH any higher would lead the Peary caribou numbers to continue to drop, Jenkins said. And if this decline continue, she said one day Inuit won’t have Peary caribou to hunt.

At odds with Jenkins and fellow biologists are members of the Resolute and Grise Fiord hunters and trappers associations, who until now have voluntarily limited hunting, and want an annual catch of 80 caribou.

Simon Idlout, an elder from Resolute who attended the meeting, said he laughs at the idea of Peary caribou one day dying out.

“It’s like a miracle, how Peary caribou multiply,” he said. “It really seems that the biologists know more than I do, but the truth is, they don’t.”

Hunters like Idlout say population declines match natural boom-and-bust cycles described by Inuit elders. While scientific population counts have only been conducted for several decades, these cycles sometimes span longer periods.

Similarly, board member Harry Flaherty dismissed warnings that Peary caribou will become extinct — a warning he says he’s heard for more than a decade.

“They’re not extinct. They’re going to survive one way or another,” Flaherty said.

Unlike most species believed to be endangered, the decline in Peary caribou populations isn’t being blamed on overhunting or habitat encroachment. Instead, global warming is the culprit, federal researchers suggest.

Unusually warm weather in recent years has led to an increase in freezing rain, which coats the tundra with a layer of ice. Unable to break through this surface to eat the vegetation beneath, large numbers of Peary caribou have starved.

From 1986 to 1996, the Resolute Hunters and Trappers Association imposed a voluntary ban on hunting Peary caribou at the southern end of Ellesmere Island.

And in 1994, the Resolute HTA received international recognition for their Peary caribou population management system from the Wildlife Society, a group of biologists and wildlife management experts. They remain the only Canadian, and aboriginal, group to receive the designation.

Biologists at the meeting faced accusations of not using Inuit traditional knowledge or consulting hunters in the High Arctic.

In response, Jenkins replied that HTA members were involved in population surveys for the last six years, in designing the surveys, in conducting counts on the ground, in providing genetic samples to biologists, and in participating with aerial surveys.

And Steve Pinksen, director of policy planning and legislation with the GN’s Department of the Environment, said the GN has spent $2.5 million over that time in consultations with High Arctic hunters and developing proposed management plans - which hunters have since rejected.

“We’re not coming forward with these recommendations lightly, or without consideration,” Pinksen said. “We didn’t just make this up.”

Decisions made by wildlife board members are not made public. Instead, the NWMB makes recommendations that are then forwarded to the appropriate territorial and federal ministers, who are given a chance to either accept or reject the board’s decision.

The special meeting will resume next month, from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25 in Iqaluit.

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