Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 17, 2007

NUNAVUT - Too many of Nunavut's wildlife are being handled and too many are dying from it, said delegates at the annual general meeting of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) held Nov. 27 to 30 in Rankin Inlet.

Members passed two resolutions calling on the Government of Nunavut to halt intrusive scientific research that is harmful to wildlife and asking for more Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit to be used in decisions regarding polar bears.

According to NTI, approximately 2,364 polar bears were darted and handled by government researchers in the three-year study in the Davis Strait, some as many as two or three times. While bears are immobilized from drugs, researchers punch a hole in one of their ears to attach a tag, tattoo the inside of their lip, remove a tooth and take a claw sample, said Bert Dean, policy adviser and acting director of NTI's wildlife department.

"Once people realize the bear has been handled there is reluctance to use the meat," Dean said. "Especially in the Arctic you like to think when you're eating country food, you're eating healthy, pristine food. Then you come across this thing and you know it's been handled and there's drugs in the system."

NTI delegates also spoke of 20 caribou that had been collared just after their calving season in Baker Lake this year. Within two weeks, six of the 20 animals had died.

NTI also says six beluga whales drowned in James Bay and Cumberland Sound this past summer while researchers attempted to bolt satellite tracking tags to their backs.

Dean suggested that with today's technology, so much handling and drugging of animals shouldn't be necessary. He recommended that aerial research be used more frequently.

Dean said hunters and elders merely "want their knowledge and information to be respected and included."

Two polar bears drowned close to Pangnirtung this past September after being tranquilized by researchers. Jevua Maniapik, manager of the Pangnirtung Hunters and Trappers Association, said she had never seen that happen before.

She doesn't often hear complaints from hunters of animals being overhandled, "but when they're tagged we're not supposed to eat them."

In such a situation, the hide is saved and the meat thrown away.

"It's a waste of meat," Maniapik said. The scientific research will continue, former Environment Minister Patterk Netser said, as no other viable means of monitoring the animals are currently available.

"We're telling the rest of the world that we have a sound management system and we are doing everything scientifically to prove to them, so it's going to go on," he said.

Nunavut has signed agreements with neighbouring countries on polar bear management, so the research will go ahead, intrusive or not, according to Netser.

He confirmed each of NTI's allegations were accurate, but said that on the whole very few animals were being harmed. The more information the government collects, the better management decisions it can make, and the more likely it is that polar bear quotas will be increased for hunters, he contended.

Netser said he had caught a polar bear that had been tagged and tattooed. He ate the meat and it was "perfectly fine." He did say that anyone who caught a polar bear that had been handled was eligible for compensation for up to a year afterwards.

The GN is always looking for alternative research methods, Netser said, but something like satellite imagery would have to improve before it could be used. As it is now, caribou could be mistaken for another animal, he said.

Netser denied NTI's accusation that not enough traditional knowledge is incorporated into wildlife management decisions.

"For them to say we don't use IQ knowledge is unfounded," he said. "We have on record the elders saying that polar bears in that region (Western Hudson Bay) lost weight considerably and there were not as many seals as there used to be."