Inuvik (Mar 22/04) - Woodland caribou don't usually come to mind when thinking of the Mackenzie and Beaufort Delta regions.

But they are here and they're being studied by the Government of the Northwest Territories' Department of Resource, Wildlife and Economic Development.

"We used to call them the forgotten caribou, but now we're getting more information on them," said John Nagy, senior wildlife researcher for RWED.

Nagy and other RWED offices in Fort Simpson, Fort Smith and the Sahtu have been studying the woodland caribou since 2002, when the sub-species hit the threatened list in Canada.

Woodland caribou are a larger cousin of the more-known barren-ground, Cape Bathurst and Porcupine caribou.

Low harvest rates and the way small social groups spread out over a large area may have something to do with why the NWT woodland caribou herds haven't been studied in depth before this, said Nagy.

High-tech collars are the main source of information for the on-going study.

Nagy uses three types of collars -- conventional satellite, Global Position System and radio transmitting.

The conventional satellite collars transmit one location every day within a 1 km radius.

The GPS collars record the longitudinal and latitudinal location of the caribou, within a 30 m radius, three times a day and sends that information via satellite to the RWED computer every two days.

The radio transmitters require a receiver, which is flown over the herds. Each animal has a different frequency so the researchers can tell which caribou is where.

Getting the collars on involves flying over the herd in a helicopter and shooting a net gun over the chosen female.

Once they land, the crew holds the caribou down and blindfolds it before putting the collar on and taking a blood sample.

Nagy said he's sustained a few bruises from the activity.

Bumps and bruises

"Last year I got a few black ones," he said.

"They are quite a lot larger than the barren-ground caribou."

Nine females were collared in 2002 and 2003. Another 23 are expected to be collared by April 3.

The main collaring area for the Mackenzie Delta region is located in the central portion of the Gwich'in settlement area -- east of Fort McPherson and along the Arctic Red River leading up to Tsiigehtchic.

Nagy hopes to have this year's collars in place before April 3.

So far the collaring program has revealed some important information about the habitat needs of the local herds, said Nagy.

Those needs include a regular route along the proposed pipeline corridor.

"We've found they have really good calving rates," said Nagy.

Of the nine females who were collared, eight calved last year. Of those eight, five of the mothers still had their babies in October.

Nagy anticipates the study will last another two or three years, in which time he hopes to have accumulated enough data about their movements to create a map.

"A habitat map for the whole Mackenzie Valley region would be useful for a lot of oil and gas activities," he said.