Yellowknife (Feb 17/06) - Reduced quotas for Bathurst caribou and a ban on winter road hunting are some of the measures expected to be handed down by Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger on Monday.

Jeff Mercer was one of many hunters to bag caribou along the Ingraham Trail during the fall of 2004. Hunting along the road may be prohibited after Monday.- NNSL file photo

The minster said he will make his announcement in the legislative assembly.

While he refused to give details, Miltenberger offered assurances Wednesday that everyone who has a stake in the caribou herd has been consulted. "I want to make sure the MLAs are apprised, the co-management boards and such are apprised, and the Barrenland outfitters are apprised before we get public," said Miltenberger.

Last month, Miltenberger said quotas for non-aboriginal hunters could drop to two or three caribou a year from five a year, and hunting along winter roads - a common practice these days - may become prohibited.

Big game outfitters will also see a reduction to their annual quotas.

Miltenberger was more circumspect about applying a quota onto aboriginal hunters - there isn't one right now - but suggested there could be one, providing aboriginal groups agree to it.

On Feb. 6, Miltenberger told the legislative assembly that he would be imposing a "whole slate of interim measures," meaning the new rules could come into effect immediately.

The measures are in response to survey numbers provided by government biologists that indicate the Bathurst herd had dropped to 186,000 animals in 2003 from 350,000 in 1996.

That assessment has been hotly contested by big game outfitters, however, who claim the government is either looking for them in the wrong areas or lumping them in with the little-known Ahiak herd.

Boyd Warner, president of the Barrenground Caribou Outfitters Association, said the one piece of good news the group has received lately is that it has been invited to join the Bathurst Caribou Management Planning Committee, which until now includes only aboriginal groups and government officials.

Regardless, he expects Miltenberger to roll back outfitter quotas to the 1999 figure of 132 tags from the 180 tags a year they're allowed today.

"We would like the status quo for this season because most of us are already booked," said Warner.

"The interim measures could mean hunters booked to come, can't come."

He said trips for visiting hunters - mostly Americans - are usually booked a year in advance.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem, who is also a director with the Canadian Wildlife Federation, said he is skeptical about the government's numbers.

He added that he thinks the main reason hunting could be banned from the Ingraham Trail and winter roads has more to do with trucking than conservation. "I think it's people that haul their animals out of the bush and gut them right on the road, and the trucks hit the gut piles," said Van Tighem. "There's significant safety concerns, but not much related to the hunting."