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Baffin Bay polar bears at risk

Brent Reaney
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Feb 28/05) - New harvest reports from Greenland and a quota increase in Nunavut could be putting a population of polar bears on North Baffin Island at risk, say wildlife experts.

In December, Environment Minister Olayuk Akesuk approved a 115-tag increase in Nunavut's polar bear quota. Hunters can now harvest 518 bears a season.

Qikiqtarjuaq, Clyde River and Pond Inlet hunt from within the Baffin Bay population. Forty-one tags were allotted for Baffin Bay, which raised the total allowable harvest to 105.

At a recent meeting of the Polar Bear Technical Committee in Edmonton, it was reported that Greenlandic hunters have been taking an average of 200 bears from the same population for the past three years.

"When added to the numbers which are harvested by Nunavut - not even counting the recent increase - it's doubtful whether the population can actually sustain a harvest of that size," said Ian Stirling, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Similar problems exist in Davis Strait, where bears are harvested under a quota in Iqaluit, Kimmirut, Pangnirtung and Labrador, but without one in Greenland and Quebec, Stirling says.

The territory's research on the Baffin Bay population seems to support Stirling's statement.

Data gathered in the late 1990s estimates about 2,100 bears, according to Nunavut's Department of the Environment.

"It looks like we would need 4,600 bears to sustain the population," said Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a polar bear biologist and the department's manager of wildlife research.

Discussions about the issue between the Greenland government and the GN have been unproductive.

"We haven't gotten too far," said Environment Minister Olayuk Akesuk.

It's time the two governments started working closely together to manage the polar bear population, he said.

The Government of Greenland and the GN have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together.

Stirling says the GN has had little success in persuading other areas such as Quebec and Greenland to enter into co-operative management agreements.

But governments do not always need to be involved in wildlife management, Stirling said.

A polar bear management agreement has been signed between Inuvialuit hunters in the Northwest Territories and those in Alaska.

"It's not legally binding, but it's perfectly effective," he says. "Governments seem to be very reticent to get into these kinds of agreements, but in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, it's long overdue and somebody's got to do something."

Eight of Nunavut's 12 polar bear populations are shared.