The controversial Bathurst herd, once abundant in the hundreds-of-thousands as recently as the 1990s, has declined by 97 per cent since 1986 according to Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) head counts. - NNSL file photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Caribou don't hang around Yellowknife these days.

The absence of the elusive and controversial Bathurst herd, once abundant in the hundreds-of-thousands as recently as the 1990s, has declined by 97 per cent since 1986 – according to Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) head counts – hurting people who depended on the animal as a source of food or income.

Aboriginal groups suspect the diamond mines played a part in the decline, according to Dettah chief Eddie Sangris of the Yellowknives Dene. Some outfitters feel the numbers reported by ENR aren't accurate, and suspect the herds have moved and split into different groups, according to Barry Taylor, owner of Arctic Safaris, a Yellowknife-based tour operator.

Negotiations between aboriginal groups and the territorial government fell apart in December, after five months of heated debate, leading Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger to declare a ban on hunting the Bathurst herd until an agreement can be reached.

Numbers indicating a 97 per cent drop in caribou numbers is scary, said Stan Boutin, a researcher for the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta.

Boutin has spent more than 20 years researching woodland caribou whose numbers are also declining. He points to over-harvesting as a possible cause of the problem, although notes he is not an expert on the Bathurst herd in particular.

"In terms of the population dynamics I think that's definitely the case in your system," he said.

Sangris said when he was younger, his father told him about a time – during the 1920s – when caribou were scarce. Yellowknives Dene members spent a winter hunting across their lands but didn't find any.

The people shared hunting information with other aboriginal groups, and having found some pockets of caribou near Behchoko, they were able to make ends meet.

"They were telling each other where to hunt and where not to hunt," he said. "So my dad would tell the people not to go hunting in our area until the caribou come back."

When Yellowknife's population doubled, and nearly tripled, said Sangris, non-aboriginal residents were given two tags to harvest two caribou per hunting season to begin with, but after a few years the government increased the number of tags to five per resident-hunter.

"Usually you'd have only 10,000 people (in Yellowknife)," he said. "Now there's nearly 30,000 here. Think about it, if you give them five tags each that's 150,000 caribou a year." The population of Yellowknife is 19,940, according to the NWT Bureau of Statistics. Harvest information found in the 2014 NWT sport hunting licence shows the highest estimated number of barrenground caribou harvested annually by resident hunters since 1983 was less than 2,000 animals in 1992/93. Estimates have not exceeded 1,000 caribou since 2001/02.

Sangris' suspicion of the mining industry's role in the decline has to do with the winter roads connecting the city with mines farther north, which he says cut across the natural migration route.

He said he feels that the Bathurst herd, which once migrated as one across the area, now split off into two groups. One turns east, while the other heads west to join with the Bluenose herd, said Sangris. Increased access along the winter roads to the mines had a huge impact on the animals, he said.

"And the government didn't see what was happening. They didn't notice any changes so they just kept the status quo ... at five tags per resident-hunter," he said. "And then the big-game outfitters came, and established the camps along those migration routes, inviting the Americans, and Europeans in, whoever wanted to hunt caribou for big game. They got hit so hard so fast that they dwindled in numbers."

Sangris said traditional knowledge of caribou teaches that they are sensitive to human activity, and are affected by the noise and airborne contaminants produced by industry.

Taylor said he doesn't buy the numbers published by ENR, and doesn't accept the explanation that winter mining roads are to blame either.

"I've heard every time a trucker farts on the ice road, it chases the caribou away," he said.

"But when the mines first showed up, the problem they had in the summertime was they had to keep all the doors shut to keep the animals out of the buildings.

The noise didn't bother them, they wanted to come into the shade and away from the bugs, and they didn't mind sitting next to a big piece of machinery making a thundering noise. The only problem with the roads was ... every once in a while somebody hit a caribou."

Boutin said there isn't data to support the theory that caribou are wary of human activity.

"I think they habituate reasonably quickly to humans in their area, and all the data I've seen – certainly for ... the (woodland) caribou – they are very sensitive to predation, but less so to human issues," he said. Sangris said he isn't so sure.

"If you go around into the watering-holes in Yellowknife and you see which one is the rowdiest, you don't go there again," he said. "And that's the same thing with caribou. If they're disturbed they don't go back."

Sangris said another cause could be climate change, a culprit also identified by Boutin.

The chief said he's heard stories of caribou falling through ice because the lakes hadn't frozen until well after they'd begun their yearly migration.

"Those kinds of things ... are really contributing," he said.

Boutin said there's evidence in Alberta that a warming planet and an increase in the wolf population are dangerous enemies of the caribou.

"In our case ... where there's no hunting ... we've seen substantive declines as well, and are all ... due to wolf predation," said Boutin.

"And also climate change leading to very positive winter conditions in our area for deer. So their numbers have exploded and that has buoyed up wolf numbers. And all that spells bad news for caribou."

Dwindling caribou numbers spell disaster for aboriginal groups, who depended on the animals for traditional ceremonies, and as a traditional diet, and since caribou meat has been absent from elders' tables they've seen an increase in diseases which weren't problematic when the caribou were numerous, said Sangris.

The disappearance of the Bathurst herd is amounting to a financial crisis for Taylor, who once flew 100 customers to caribou camps every year. Those customers used to bring as much as $13,000 each into Yellowknife, he said. The operation used to bring thousands of pounds of meat to town, which could be shared around among the elders if outfitters were allowed to hunt.

A $10 million lawsuit filed in 2011 by caribou outfitters – alleging the GNWT deprived them of income – remains unresolved. Taylor is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Sangris said he's hopeful the caribou will rebound but the future looks bleak. He said he's encouraged his people not to harvest from the Bathurst herd since 2010.

He said outfitters hunting on behalf of aboriginal people wouldn't be a satisfactory answer, since he isn't confident the creatures would be respected by non-aboriginal hunters. He said the tradition of hunting caribou couldn't be handed down to the next generation, in that scenario.

Taylor said when hunting was allowed he accounted for every piece of meat collected, and respected the animals.He said if things don't turn around soon he'll be applying for welfare.

"There's no business. I built caribou camps. They're big investments." he said. "And then the rug got pulled out."

People came to Yellowknife to hunt caribou, because it was something you couldn't do anywhere else, he said, but now interest in his business is tapering off.

"The whole world knows they're banned, and (they) know it's all politics."

Boutin said an underlying theory in the caribou mystery is that the populations are cyclical, but that over-harvesting is a much more popular hypothesis in scientific circles.

"97 per cent decline, that's getting scary for sure," he said.

The GNWT requires industry to protect caribou, according to Terry Kruger, communications manager for De Beers Canada.

The company has provided funding and observation data to ENR, have set out guidelines for their operations, including lowering speed limits, checking for caribou in their areas before blasting, and minimizing their footprint, Kruger wrote in an e-mail.

They're making lower snow berms along the Gahcho Kue mine road to help caribou cross, he wrote.

ENR's communications officer Judy McClinton declined comment.