NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Aboriginal groups have pulled support for a study focused on finding more effective ways to test for bovine tuberculosis in animal herds, bringing it to a halt.

Research into finding more effective ways to test for tuberculosis in animal herds that was being carried out in the Slave River Lowlands was halted after aboriginal groups pulled support last month. The fate of the study is unknown at this point. - NNSL file photo

Researchers completed the first phase of the study, which was carried out on bison populations in the Slave River Lowlands in February, but lost their backing from the NWT Metis Nation, Salt River First Nation and Smith's Landing First Nation the following month due to a lack of consultation, said Ken Hudson, president of the Fort Smith Metis Council.

"There were discussions over the phone on what (the researchers) intended to do and then about a month and a half ago or so they called me and wanted me to sign off on it and then they'd come work out the details of the project with us," recounted Hudson.

"But those kinds of details of our involvement were never figured out because they just ignored dealing with us when they came into town."

The project had two phases. During the first, researchers captured 28 bison, took blood samples, injected a skin stimulant, put radio collars on them and let them go.

Three days later, they recaptured them to check for a reaction to the skin stimulant, which would indicate whether the bison is infected with TB, and released.

In phase two, the animal would be killed so the tissue could be examined, which is currently the most accurate way to confirm if a bison is infected with TB.

The study was supposed to last three years with 30 bulls harvested from the Slave River Lowlands each year. Researchers are also in discussions with other aboriginal groups to carry out the same work in Wood Buffalo National Park.

The University of Saskatchewan student who is spearheading the project said there are issues with one of the tests.

"Right now, there is a skin test that isn't very inaccurate. It has a bunch of problems. One, it misses infections and two, it requires the animal be handled twice. It was a test that was developed for cattle," explained Adam Hering.

"So the plan for this research is to compare a handful of (five) blood based tests that can identify tuberculosis in a live animal and because they're based on blood you just take a single blood sample and you only have to handle the animal once."

Researchers expected to involve people in the area in the second phase of the study by hiring some to help with the hunt, post-mortem exams, as well as preparing and distributing any non-diseased meat to the communities. They also planned to engage youth in the project.

"Their thinking was they didn't have to deal with us until the skinning part of it and that's not what we wanted," said Hudson. "We wanted to observe their operation and make sure they're following all the protocols of chasing animals and drugging them and what not . I've worked on projects before with government and we were involved right from shopping at the store to get groceries, to picking out camps, to deciding how we're going to do things. So this was completely lacking in any planning with aboriginal people on the details of what they were going to do out in the field."

There was a miscommunication, said Hering. He and his team didn't realize that the aboriginal groups expected to be involved in the first phase.

"To our understanding, they are not usually involved in any collaring work of other species and we had never discussed that in the earlier sets of consultations that we had done," he said, adding the team was facing a time crunch and that's why they didn't start consultations immediately upon arrival.

"We had a week and a half between when we got our wildlife research permit to when we needed to start our research this year so we would be able to complete all of the work within the safe handling period . We had to hire helicopters and get import permits for testing and organize quite a bit of logistics so we were just getting all that going."

Hering said he made a trip to the community in March solely to fulfill his promise of consultation when he was informed of the withdrawal of support.

At this point, the team had spent more than $100,000 to carry out phase one of the study. They were supposed to start phase two on April 1.

"It's really unfortunate, because I think this project is really, really necessary for bison conservation in Canada," said Hering. "I think it's a positive project for local communities who would get jobs and meat out of it and hopefully this would work toward being able to decrease the amount of disease in these herds of bison that they count on for their food source."

Currently, explained Herring, there are limited tools for handling wildlife populations infected with TB and the proposed action for dealing with it is to kill off the entire herd.

Herring would like to see the project move forward next year but is unsure if funders, including the Canadian Bison Association, Alberta Livestock and Meat Association and the National Bison Association, will risk more money given what's happened.

Hudson said he would consider supporting the study next year if researchers consult as they'd like.

"To explain afterwards that 'we intended to this and we intended to do that,' well that's not good enough. You have to sit down with aboriginal people and spell out exactly what you're going to do and what our involvement is going to be."

In the meantime, Hering said his team is making plans to honour the request from those in the area and remove the collars from the bison.

Although he is still somewhat hopeful that the project will regain support and they will be able to finish what was started.

The team was able to complete skin tests on 26 of the bison they captured and found 77 percent are infected with TB.

"Given that this test isn't 100 per cent accurate, there is a very good chance that at least one or two of those other six are infected as well. The old bulls, the ones we were going for, are the ones with the highest amounts of infection in those animals and based on those preliminary results there's a good chance that most of those animals, definitely over half . are infected with tuberculosis. So those are all animals that because of this we're going to be releasing back into the herd."

News/North was unable to speak to the chiefs of Salt River First Nation and Smith's Landing First Nation by press time.