Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Rae-Edzo (Nov 15/99) - For the first time in years, the Bathurst caribou herd are calling the neighbourhood of Rae-Edzo and Yellowknife their winter home.

And that's making the people responsible for keeping tabs on hunters and caribou in the area very busy.

"We have people out there every day keeping an eye on things," said Raymond Bourget, senior wildlife officer for the North Slave region.

"Our biggest concern with this many caribou in the area is dangerous hunting," said Bourget. He said only one incident has been reported so far when a ricocheting bullet came near a hunter.

The other concern is wasted meat.

"The more animals there are available, the more likely there is to be wastage," said Bourget.

Territorial wildlife officers and biologists flew over the area Friday to monitor the size and movement of the herd.

Ernie Campbell was one of them. He said the officials counted 5,000 caribou on the area lakes. Most of the animals were in an area 15-30 kilometres north of Hwy 3, about a third of the way from Yellowknife to Rae. Campbell estimated that caribou in the wooded areas would bring that number up to 10-20,000.

The closeness of the herd to the most densely populated part of their range also presents concerns for caribou biologists.

Territorial caribou biologist Anne Gunn said area roads give hunters an ease of access they don't normally have. Because there are more hunters near them, the roads act as barriers to the herd's migration.

In the Yukon, the Porcupine Caribou Management Board is well aware of the problem roads and hunting present to caribou.

It recently introduced a 500-metre no-hunting zone on either side of the Dempster Highway. The highway was also closed to hunting for a week in October to allow leaders of the herd to pass.

A no-shooting corridor exists on the Ingraham Trail, which runs east from Yellowknife, but it is designed more for the safety of people living on the trail than to allow caribou to cross the trail.

The 30-kilometre corridor begins at the city limits and extends to 1.5 kilometres on each side of the trail.

The corridor was introduced in 1988 but the last time the caribou were in the area in large numbers, in 1992, a number of hunters were unaware of it. Some were charged with wildlife offenses as a result.

There is no no-shooting corridor on the road between Rae and Yellowknife.