Iqaluit (Mar 14/05) - Hunters can be apprehensive when they see a white face standing in front of them.

And Karen Ditz should know. The fisheries management biologist with the department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has met with hunters from nearly every community during her four and a half years in Nunavut.

Karen Ditz has spent the past four and a half years working as the fisheries management biologist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Iqaluit.

At times she has been insulted, but people have also thanked her for helping integrate scientific conservation practices with the information she has been given by Inuit elders, she says.

While the department manages marine mammals across Canada, Ditz says DFO's role is different in Nunavut because of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

"The HTOs, they really have a lot of responsibility and power," Ditz says.

The department often battles bad press, though Ditz says often it is because of misinformation.

Many hunters still believe that it is DFO deciding on harvest numbers. In fact, it is the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board which makes the final recommendation to the Minister of the Environment.

"But the GN still seems to give the impression that they're the ones setting the quotas," Ditz says.

Problems can also occur when hunters have moved away from traditional practices.

While not necessarily the case in every community, Ditz points to the practice of harpooning a whale before shooting it - which drops the sunk and lost rate to almost zero.

"Those types of values need to be passed on," she says.

Other problems include a recent court case involving three narwhal hunters accused of hunting without a tag in Taloyoak.

Under the Fisheries Act, every violation must go through the court system and there are no ticketable offenses.

"That's a failure of the legislation as it is right now," Ditz says. "When people go to court they take that very seriously and it's very traumatic."

She will miss Iqaluit, but with her partner moving to British Columbia and the couple expecting a baby in June, it was time to go.

"The North is just so humbling, in so many ways. It will always be a part of me."