SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - With the winter caribou hunt fast approaching, the territorial government hopes the new limited hunting agreement with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation will keep problems from arising over hunting rights and a partnership in monitoring the hunt will limit caribou harvested.

However, it's unclear how monitoring of hunting in the restricted zone north of Yellowknife will take place.

According to the Barren-ground Caribou Harvesting Interim Agreement signed last fall by the territorial govern-ment and the Yellowknives, the First Nations group was allowed to hunt 150 Bathurst caribou over the winter, and must use their best efforts to ensure 80 per cent are bulls. The agreement also states that the Yellowknives will manage the harvest through the no-hunting zone, including the Chief Drygeese Area north of Yellowknife, though no one would comment on how.

No one with the Yellowknives would comment on how they were organizing the monitoring system, but one Yellowknives staffer, who asked not to be named, said they had trained monitors out this week, Jan. 10, as the winter roads are forming.

In December 2009, in a move to protect the drastically declining Bathurst caribou herd, Michael Miltenberger, minister of Environment and Natural Resources, implemented an emergency hunting ban in the caribou grounds north of Great Slave Lake on Jan. 1, 2010. Officials with the department confiscated 17 caribou carcases from Dene hunters, sparking a bitter disagreement between the Yellowknives and the GNWT. The meat was later redistributed to the Yellowknives, though some complained about the quality of the roughly handled meat.

The agreement was drawn up this year after 2009 numbers showed a decline in the Bathurst herd, to approximately 32,000 from approximately 128,000 in 2006.

Fred Mandeville, renewable resource officer with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said that the caribou should be getting close to Yellowknife, and when they're spotted, eligible Dene hunters will begin their winter hunt.

"They'll start when they get within Ski-Dooing distance." He said.

Mandeville said one of the two stations will be at Ross Lake, about 80 km east of Yellowknife, adding he is not sure where the second will be, though most likely at Bluefish Lake where it was last year.

When Yellowknifer asked if people who are out hunting are required to stop, Mandeville said it was voluntary. He said they will be able to monitor hunting and other activities taking place in the Chief Drygeese Area.

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