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IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY
Kitikmeot Foods in Cambridge Bay cancelled its commercial muskox harvest due to low number of muskox within the vicinity, last month.

The annual muskox harvest in Cambridge Bay has been cancelled for 2013 due to too few of the animals being seen close to the community. - NNSL file photo

"The economical radius for getting them is too far out right now," said Bill Lyall, Kitikmeot Foods' board of directors chair.

He said a formal count of the animal has not been conducted and that he hopes the problem is merely distance, not herd numbers.

"They're just too far away, if there are any."

Lyall has been in Cambridge Bay since 1968 and helped put start Kitikmeot Foods. He said he has never seen this happen before. The annual two-week harvest, typically planned between February and March, involves dozens of local hunters and roughly 200 muskox. Regulations stipulate that the carcass must make it to the abattoir before freezing.

"The transportation costs are pretty high so you have to get the animals pretty close to town to make it viable," said Lyall.

Lyall, who used to run the local fish plant and was general manager at the Co-op, said that other wild game shortages are seldom but do happen. Caribou, for example, haven't been harvested for the last four years. Kitikmeot Foods stated in all cases, the importance of being sustainable takes precedence.

Lyall and the board of directors hope to resume the harvest in 2014 but this will depend on the status of the muskox population.

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