Yellowknife (Jan 10/05) - The Paulatuk Char Working Group received an award recently for taking the initiative to conserve and manage Arctic char stocks in the Hornaday River.

Each year the Fisheries and Joint Management Committee Co-operative Management Award is given to a group or person which has contributed to the co-management of fisheries or mammals, said Kevin Bill, a resource biologist with the committee.

In 1996, the Paulatuk Hunters and Trappers Committee first identified the need for a char management plan.

The working group was then formed to devise a plan to control future impacts on the stock, Bill said.

"It started with 1,700 fish in the quota and it was raised in the recent plan up to 2,000 due to significant increases in the size and age of the fish," he said.

Noel Green, a group member, said char in the river were getting smaller and stocks were diminishing before the group began its work.

"We had to do something to save our char," he said.

In the 1970s, the commercial fishery depleted many of the stocks, Green said. "That really hurt our char stock more than our domestic fishing."

The future looks promising for the revived char stock, said Marcus Ruben Sr., another member of the working group.

"It's coming back now," he said.