Colville Lake (Mar 31/03) - A debate is brewing in Colville Lake as to whether to allow wildlife officers to survey caribou herd numbers or simply request that they leave them alone.

Jamie Chambers, a wildlife officer with Renewable Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development -- who's area of responsibility includes Colville Lake -- said the community's resource council recently refused to allow them to conduct an aerial caribou "recruitment" survey to see how many of last year's calves survived the winter.

"It's a good indication of population dynamics, if the herd's going to be going up or going down," said Chambers.

He said RWED is concerned about the caribou herd around Colville Lake because of recent oil and gas exploration activity taking place in the area.

Chambers said there are indications that the heavy traffic in area over the last two years is driving the herd away.

"There are a lot less caribou," said Chambers.

"The two main reasons why there is less caribou is because of the winter road between Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake, the increased traffic on that.

"The second thing would be all the oil and gas exploration going on in the region."

Colville Lake's Behdzi Ahda First Nation signed a 10-year concession agreement with Paramount Resources two years ago to begin exploring the region in search of oil and gas deposits.

Since then, the community has gone from near zero employment to almost 100 per cent employed, while another oil and gas company -- Canadian Natural Resources Limited -- has also begun exploratory work in the area. A winter air strip was also built on nearby Island Lake, which Chambers said was prime caribou habitat until recently.

"Every year we do this (caribou survey) we have to get a recommendation form signed by their renewable resource council," said Chambers. "But they wrote back and said, 'We don't approve.

"We think this survey is very important, not just for our purposes but for the people in Colville Lake.

Now, it makes you wonder what the focus is from a community point of view."

Renewable resource council president, Richard Kochon, said, however, that the debate is not over -- that they initially rejected the survey because too many community members have not been around in recent months to reach a consensus.

He said now that much of the winter exploratory work is over, the community will now have time to consider the survey.

"Everybody was pretty busy so sometime we will want to have a meeting," said Kochon, adding a date has not been set yet.

"If they support it we'll just go ahead I guess."

Kochon acknowledged that caribou have been scarce this winter but warned that not everybody in the community is pleased with RWED.

He said some people see little difference between oil and gas exploration disturbing the caribou and biologists moving in to study them.

"The other year they put some collars on them (caribou), about 16 of them and they just left them there," said Kochon. "If somebody put a collar on my neck I wouldn't feel good with it."