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Reasons for optimism for Bathurst caribou New, comprehensive study planned for spring 2012Kevin Allerston Northern News Services Published Monday, August 29, 2011
"There's no such thing as 'stabilized' from the aboriginal point of view," he said.
Bezha, the chair of the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board, travelled from Deline to attend the 2011 Arctic Ungulate Conference in Yellowknife last week.
"Sixteen years ago there were hundreds of thousands and then 20 years later we're down to 32,000," he said.
Bezha said it would be wise for people to develop an attitude of respect for all kinds of wildlife the way his father and grandfather's generations did.
"It all goes back to concepts where we all have a responsibility to live with caribou," he said. "Those are the kinds of things that come up at the conference I'm here at today. All aboriginal people in the North need to share and help not only establish our relations with wildlife, but with each other as well."
He said he has concerns over some of the tourism that is centered around hunting the ungulates, which includes all hooved animals.
But Bezha pointed out that caribou levels have always fluctuated. Government estimates had the Bathurst herd at a peak of approximately 472,000 in 1986, to the "stabilized" figure of 32,000 today.
"I don't think anybody manages caribou. Caribou pretty well manage themselves. All we do is harvest," Bezha said. "I think in a lot of ways things have really shifted because of a lot of things. They've adopted ways of telling people 'come up here from outside.' I think at this stage ... many people are saying, 'that's probably not the best for the future.'"
Environment and Natural Resources researcher and conference organizer Jan Adamczewski said it is a combination of traditional and scientific knowledge that are needed to help ensure the herds are around for generations to come.
"We spend a lot of time working with aboriginal groups to learn their points of view about the herds," Adamczewski said Thursday.
He mentioned some of the reasons for the declines in barrenland caribou herds, particularly the Bathurst herd.
"It just happened in the 1980s that it was basically a time of increase in the caribou that we manage. And then in the 2000s most of the herds we worked with were in decline," he said.
"Calving was late, pregnancy rates were low, calf survival was low. So they almost certainly would have been in decline during that period regardless of what the harvest was."
He said this is when the harvest became an issue, since the number of surviving calves were already in decline. However, he gave reasons for being optimistic about the future of Northern caribou herds, citing restrictions imposed on harvests around the North.
"We also know that in the last few years the calf numbers have picked up ... so if we have calves surviving at higher rates and you've got good calf numbers coming in, then a downward trend can quite quickly become a stable trend and we all hope and pray to see an increasing trend," Adamczewski said.
John Boulanger, a statistician who has studied the Bathurst herd, agrees.
"I think by the harvest being reduced we've given the cows a chance to survive - and the other side is the environment, over which we have less control. So it seems like those factors are lining up pretty good," said Boulanger, who is with Integrated Ecological Research in Nelson, B.C.
Both researchers noted that caribou herd populations run in cycles that can last as long as 60 years, so if there is an increasing trend in populations it could take time to see.
Boulanger said a more comprehensive study of the Bathurst herd will be conducted in spring of 2012, when studies can be conducted from the air, taking pictures of the herd in their calving grounds.
"It will become more apparent, the magnitude of the stabilization or the recovery," said Boulanger.
Approximately 230 people from around the circumpolar region attended the week-long conference at Yellowknife's Explorer Hotel last week.
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