Maria Canton
Northern News Services

Qikiqtarjuaq (Oct 09/00) - Five hunters plan to bag 50 caribou near Iqaluit this week to feed their community until Christmas.

Plagued by low caribou populations for more than 15 years, hunters in Qikiqtarjuaq felt they had no choice but to travel south to harvest animals for their community.

"We have to travel two days to get to where the caribou are before we can even start hunting. Sometimes hunters will hunt for a week and not catch anything," said Stevie Audlakiak, a member of his local Hunters and Trappers Organization.

The hunt has been so poor that for the last two years Qikiqtarjuaq has been buying their caribou supply from the Pond Inlet HTO.

Although it is costly -- they have to pay the hunters and freight on 20 whole caribou from Pond Inlet to Qikiqtarjuaq, Audlakiak says they have no choice.

"This year we would have done the same as in the past, but the people in Pond Inlet said there weren't a lot of caribou around there either."

Faced with a predicament that could possibly mean no caribou from now until their annual Christmas community feast, the five hunters decided to call Iqaluit's HTO for help.

David Ell, the secretary manager of Iqaluit's HTO, agreed to their request, and said that it wouldn't take away from local hunters at this time of the year.

"We gave them permission to hunt 50 caribou across the bay for their community," said Ell.

The five men are renting the Iqaluit HTO's boat and will travel about 30 km across the bay with the HTO's captain as their guide.

According to the Baffin regional wildlife biologist , Mike Ferguson, there have been almost no caribou in the Qikiqtarjuaq area for many years.

"I think the last time caribou were in Qikiqtarjuaq was in the 1950s," said Ferguson.

"Right now the caribou that used to feed near Nettilling Lake are shifting north towards Pangnirtung and in the long-term they may go back to Qikiqtarjuaq."

As for the Pond Inlet populations, Ferguson said that large numbers of caribou moved into the community in the early 1990s, but have since depleted the best of their lichen forage.

"For the last two winters the caribou have stopped wintering close to town," he said.

"Since the five years that they've been in town, they have shifted northwest of the community by about 150-200 km away in the winters."

The five Qikiqtarjuaq hunters plan to stay in Iqaluit until Sunday.