INUVIK - It took 10 years, but wildlife officials finally have an answer to a pressing caribou question - one that may surprise recently restricted hunters.

Initial numbers released in January 2011 for the Porcupine caribou herd, which spans Alaska, Yukon and Northwest Territories, show the population is actually increasing. For the past decade the caribou were thought to be in decline but the absence of an official census during that time made it difficult to know for sure. - Katie May/NNSL photo

In late January, the government of Alaska released initial results from its survey of the Porcupine caribou herd completed last July - the first successful aerial photo census since 2001. The survey shows the caribou are once again growing in number, and the count isn't even finished yet.

Researchers have already counted more than 123,000 Porcupine caribou, which is what the herd numbered when it was last properly surveyed a decade ago.

Biologists in Alaska, where the herd tends to gather as it migrates from across the Mackenzie Delta and the Yukon, expect to have the final results by early March. Previous estimates from the Porcupine Caribou Management Board put the animals at about 100,000, down from 178,000 in 1989, prompting years of discussion about acceptable conservation measures.

Cathie Harms, wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said governments across the herd's habitat area - much of it Gwich'in land stretching from the Alaskan coast down the Dempster highway to Fort McPherson - have been conservative in their management of the herd just in case.

"No one really knew if the herd was declining, stabilized, increasing or what," Harms said. "The numbers that we're looking at indicate that the decline did not continue - if it did, not for very long - and that the herd has grown, and that's good news."

She said "the stars aligned" last summer to create ideal surveying conditions, including functional equipment, clear weather and good timing, the lack of which had continually stymied hopeful surveyors in the past.

Fears of declining caribou herds in the Western Arctic prompted conservation boards in the NWT and the Yukon to adopt hunting restrictions seven months ago, when governments and aboriginal leadership from the NWT and the Yukon officially agreed on a management plan for the Porcupine caribou herd.

Several organizations that comprise the Porcupine Caribou Management Board - the Inuvialuit Game Council, Gwich'in Tribal Council, GNWT, Vuntut Gwich'in government, Tro'ondek Hewch'in First Nation of NaCho Nyak Dun, the Yukon government and the federal government - issued regulations stating that aboriginal hunters will have no harvest limit and will commit voluntarily to hunting bulls only. Licensed hunters are limited to one caribou each, bulls only, and those hunters are required to report their harvests.

Representatives from the Gwich'in Tribal Council and the Inuvialuit Game Council did not immediately return calls for comment, but the management board responded to the initial survey results on its website, saying "the board is excited about this news."

The board's first annual harvest meeting, as required by the management plan, is set to be held in Inuvik Feb. 8 to 10.

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