GN puts limit on Kuglugtuk caribou hunt
Annual harvest for Bluenose-East caribou set at 340
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, February 13, 2017
KUGLUKTUK
The Kitikmeot is seeing a cap on caribou harvesting for the first time.
An annual harvest of 340 has been set for the Bluenose-East caribou herd in Nunavut. The herd is hunted by residents of Kugluktuk and by groups in the Northwest Territories. - photo courtesy of Mathieu Dumond |
A total allowable harvest (TAH) of 340 kills annually in Nunavut has been placed on the Bluenose-East caribou herd, according to a Feb. 3 announcement by the GN's Department of Environment.
The herd is harvested primarily by Kugluktuk residents.
"There's going to be a lot of disgruntled people but they have got to realize that it is coming to this stage," said Larry Adjun, chairperson of the Kugluktuk Hunters and Trappers Organization. "We've got to learn to hunt with this quota system.
"The sad fact is that a lot of people do traditional hunting here and part of the food for their table is caribou. It does put a big dent in our harvesting needs, our basic needs for country food."
The Kugluktuk HTO is encouraging people to look to other meat sources, such as muskox, which are more plentiful in the region.
The community also hunts Bathurst Inlet and Dolphin Union caribou. Adjun said in past the annual harvest for these three herds combined sat at around 1,000 caribou, caught by hunters from the community of approximately 1,500.
Mathieu Dumond, regional wildlife manager for the Kitikmeot, said this estimate for the combined hunt is now deemed both generous and dated.
"Last year, even with an estimate of unreported harvest, because it is not mandatory to report your caribou harvest, our estimate was 265 of the Bluenose-East caribou were harvested," he said.
"So the harvest without the TAH may not have been higher than 340 anyway. There is a chance the community will not be effected that much."
The population estimate for the Bluenose-East caribou herd is a little more than 38,000 animals, he said. The decision was to keep the harvest level around two and 2.5 per cent of the herd, which includes harvesting in the NWT.
User groups collaborated to decide the breakdown of the harvest across territorial borders.
The new harvest limit allows the community full allocation over tags for the Bluenose-East caribou - a stipulation of the Nunavut Agreement when a population is so low.
"The HTO has control over those tags, which means they can decide to give them all to beneficiaries, or they can decide to keep some tags for other users."
Hunters will have to acquire tags from the Kugluktuk HTO before harvesting Bluenose-East caribou.
While the new limit is the first quota placed on a caribou herd in the Kitikmeot region, it is also one of only a few in the territory.
"It's a big step for Nunavut users to have a TAH on caribou. It will take time for people to adapt," said Dumond. "It's a very important species traditionally, spiritually, culturally."
He said the herd count was looking up in 2010 but the decline has resumed since.
Both traditional knowledge studies and aerial surveys were done to develop the TAH. A proposal for the harvest limit was submitted to the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board early in 2016 and the Department of Environment approved the proposal in September of last year.
According to Adjun, the Kugluktuk HTO stopped commercial harvesting of caribou in 2007. It outlawed sport hunting of caribou at the same time.
