Dez Loreen
Northern News Services
Friday, February 2, 2007

INUVIK - People who attended the barren-ground Caribou Summit last week are saying that it proved to be a good resource for gathering information and identifying priorities for managing the declining herds throughout the North.

The summit was a conference that involved aboriginal groups, the territorial and federal governments, as well as outfitters and representatives from other provinces.

During the three-day conference, many presentations were made on current herd populations.

Ensuring proper communication between the government and aboriginal groups was addressed by people from town and from the outlying communities.

Fred Wolki of Tuktoyaktuk made a speech about the importance of sharing knowledge and information.

He said he remembered growing up in the Cape Bathurst area, where the herd would move seasonally from one region to another.

"It was back then that I first noticed that caribou don't like human activity near their land," Wolki told the audience.

He told a story form when he would hunt near the Anderson river, which was a four-day trip by dog team from Tuk.

The area was also shared by another group of hunters from another community.

Wolki said he noticed a decline in the herd numbers then, because both groups would hunt them same herd and not even know it.

"That is why we all need to keep in touch now, to talk about the herds and what we can do to keep them alive," said Wolki.

Environment and Natural Resources wildlife manager Ray Case was on hand to explain the research that had been conducted by the territorial government over the past six years.

"We have been studying the movement patterns of the herds in the Territories," said Case.

Case said that they watched the summer distribution of the herds, conducted winter range surveys and numerous calving ground censuses and post-calving censuses to gather more knowledge about the animals.

Case said their photo census with collared caribou relied heavily on the weather.

"We had between 60-80 animals collared, both adult males and females," said Case.

Case explained that census was used to count the herds.

"We waited until the herds gathered to avoid insects in the calm, warm weather before the counts were done," said Case.

Saskatchewan's Blake Lake First Nation Chief Freddy Thorassie was at the summit to hear about the northern animals as well.

"It is hard for us to participate in this conference at this time," said Thorassie.

"How will this information get back to us?" he asked the crowd.

Thorassie said he was concerned about how his group could help in preserving the northern herds and what it would mean to the animals in his region.

Liz Hansen is one of the local residents who was at the summit. She said she is concerned about the herds and how the decline will affect the people of the region.

Hansen said a possible solution to the herd problem could be to reduce the number of caribou that hunters are allowed to take.

"The cause for the decline is probably human activities that aren't monitored," said Hansen. "People only need a few caribou per household, there are other seasonal animals to eat."

She said that hunters and aboriginal communities should still be relying on moose in the fall time, ducks in the spring as well as other small animals like birds and rabbits.

Yellowknife outfitter Jim Peterson said saving the caribou might mean reducing the number of available tags for commercial hunters.

"If it means reducing my numbers, I can accept that," said Peterson. "But if caribou are taken from my business, we couldn't survive with just fishing and would shut down."

Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger said that government communication with aboriginal communities will be improved.

"We will no longer just post the collar data on the Internet, we will make it more accessible in the communities," said Miltenberger. "We are all looking in the right direction."