IS BATHURST’S DECLINE BAD NEWS FOR OTHER HERDS?
They’re not as famous as their cousins El Ninõ and La Ninã, but two big pressure systems – the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation – are flipping weather conditions around in the northern hemisphere almost every 10 years, and some scientists believe this is affecting caribou populations on a subcontinental scale. While it’s natural for caribou numbers to go up and down over time, there is concern that human activity could speed up a decline.
“People are starting to look at this in great detail now,” says NWT caribou biologist Anne Gunn, who headed the 2003 survey that found the Bathurst caribou herd had dropped to 186,000 from 350,000 in 1996.
“It’s been shown to fit with changes in number of red deer in Norway. It’s been shown to fit with the numbers of caribou in Greenland.”
When the pressure is high, weather tends to be warmer. When pressure is lower, the weather is cooler and wetter, with more snow. “As these weather systems flip back and forward, they have a real influence on caribou numbers,” says Gunn.
“It looks more and more that there is some degree of synchrony between the cycles of neighbouring herds.”
How other herds are faring
Synchrony (also called synchronicity) is the term used when things happen at the same time. What’s confusing, though, is that there are also exceptions to the rule called ‘asynchrony.’
While west of the Bathurst range, the Porcupine caribou herd in Yukon and NWT tumbled from an all-time high of 178,000 in 1989 to 123,000 in 2001, the Western Arctic Herd next door in Alaska “has been more or less stable since about 1990, with only 1 to 3 per cent annual variations in population size,” says biologist Jim Dau of Kotzebue. Results from a 2003 population survey are pending, but the herd was pegged at 463,000 in 1996 and at 430,000 in 1999, a dip that may have been due to measurement error, he adds.
What was once the world’s largest caribou herd, northern Quebec’s George River herd, plunged from 800,000 in 1993 to 440,000 in 2001, yet the neighbouring Leaf River herd doubled from 260,000 in 1991 to 550,000 in 2001.
“There is evidence for both synchrony and asynchrony of caribou populations,” says retired caribou biologist and former BQCMB member Don Thomas. “Numbers of barren-ground caribou generally were low across North America in the 1940s and ‘50s with a resurgence in the ‘60s and ‘70s. . . . Cases of asynchrony are common after 1960.”
Gunn says the 10-year weather-flip pattern is surfacing in other parts of nature, such as river flow rates, forest fire burn rates, and even caribou hoof scars found on spruce roots (see “Around the Range”).
After the Bathurst herd survey results were made public, CBC North reported that Dettah chief Peter Liske favoured a suggestion by Dogrib elder Alexis Arrowmaker for a two- to three-year ban on hunting the herd. It wasn’t clear who the ban would apply to.
The NWT government does not have aboriginal harvest statistics for the Bathurst herd. However, according to the BQCMB’s 2002-2003 annual report, the aboriginal harvest from the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds is estimated to be 1.5 caribou per person each year – about 6,500 animals hunted from the Beverly herd and about 12,000 animals taken from the Qamanirjuaq.
Are Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds in sync?
The Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds haven’t been surveyed since 1994, when they numbered 276,000 and 496,000 respectively. Although there’s no sign the Qamanirjuaq herd is dropping, it may be “levelling off a bit,” says Nunavut biologist Mitch Campbell. The herd is still healthy but “there’s a lot more diseased animals people are picking up on.”
And according to the BQCMB’s harvest calculation formula, the Beverly herd is thought to be close to its sustainable harvest limit now.
Synchrony is “one of many little hints” about the health of the herd, says Campbell, and it could be added to many other clues – like hunter observations, herd composition surveys, results from the BQCMB’s caribou monitoring efforts in Baker Lake and Arviat – to provide a big picture for management purposes. But government funding to gather such information tends to be hit and miss, says Campbell. Given the absence of information and a solid management strategy, he says he plans to recommend that senior wildlife managers at the Department of Sustainable Development (DSD) consider a Qamanirjuaq survey in two years’ time, “and I would stand by that unless we develop an index system that shows us otherwise.”
Campbell’s department had put aside funds to assist a 2002 survey of the Beverly herd, but that was only if some Beverly animals first wore satellite collars to help scientists outline with certainty the calving grounds – key to a successful population survey.
A Bathurst cow and calf during the 2003 survey. Scientists suspect neighbouring caribou herds may be increasing or decreasing at the same time because of two big weather pressure systems that flip weather conditions roughly every decade
Photo by Anne Gunn
AROUND THE RANGE
How-to video for hunters
Earl Evans
Earl Evans (above) and Kenny Hudson dispense advice in The Caribou Hunters
Photo by Leslie Wakelyn
An excellent new educational video produced by the Fort Smith Métis Council and funded by the NWT’s Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED) takes viewers step-by-step through time-proven tactics for hunting, skinning and butchering caribou – strategies that are both successful and conservation-minded. The Caribou Hunters, starring BQCMB member Earl Evans and Fort Smith Métis Council president Kenny Hudson, dispenses lots of good advice as the men successfully take down an animal (“always aim for the head, neck or ribs”), prep the skinning and butchering area by running snowmobile trails to pack down the snow, and expertly slit the hide by holding the knife at a flatter angle, to avoid puncturing the stomach. Last fall, RWED distributed 1,500 copies of the video to public organizations such as schools, libraries, and band councils, as well as to resident hunters.
The fruits of research
University of Alberta PhD student Kerri Zittlau, a two-time winner of Caribou Management Scholarship awards, has wrapped up her microsatellite DNA analysis to determine the range boundaries of caribou herds. She concludes that, because the continental herds are so large, some herds have not yet developed distinct features from their neighbours. In a progress report to the BQCMB, another 2003 award winner, University of British Columbia PhD student Rebecca Zalatan, outlines her continuing investigation into how caribou hoof scars left on spruce roots in the Bathurst and Beverly herd ranges reveal the sizes of past caribou populations, and what the size of growth rings in the spruce trees tells us about climate change. She and NWT biologist Anne Gunn will combine these findings with traditional knowledge about caribou populations to see how the information matches up.
BQCMB meetings
The spring meeting will return board members to a familiar haunt: Fort Smith, May 28 – 30, 2004. The BQCMB last met there in November 1998. As usual, board members make their way to Winnipeg for the fall meeting, Nov. 26 – 28, 2004.
THE BEVERLY COLLARING QUESTION
Should a few cows from the Beverly herd wear satellite collars or not?
BQCMB member August Enzoe
BQCMB member August Enzoe of Lutselk’e (left) and Fred Turner, a North Slave Métis, with one of the Bathurst herd’s satellite-collared cows
Photo by Anne Gunn
This debate continued in several range communities this year. In 2002, the BQCMB agreed in principle that satellite collars on select caribou would be necessary before a costly population survey (around $120,000) could go ahead.
Information from satellite collars would confirm the whereabouts of caribou cows before biologists fly out to do a census on the calving grounds during the limited June calving season. Collars are in use with the Bathurst herd, which was recently surveyed.
Elders in northern Saskatchewan oppose satellite collaring. BQCMB alternate member Pierre Robillard of Black Lake, a vocal supporter of collaring, spoke at the August 2003 Denesuline Gathering in Black Lake about the benefits of collaring.
In Baker Lake, most of the 60 callers to a radio phone-in show staged by the local HTO in October gave collaring the thumbs-up.
“They like to be kept up to date on the caribou range,” explained BQCMB member David Aksawnee of Baker Lake, who is also president of the Baker Lake HTO. Aksawnee notes that the Qamanirjuaq herd, from which he also harvests, has been collared for some years now (this spring, 10 cows will be wearing collars).
At November’s meeting, BQCMB vice-chairman Tim Trottier stressed several times that the decision to adopt collaring must come from Athabascan communities.
“They’ve said to us a number of times, ‘Stop bothering us. We said no. How many times do we have to say no to you?’” Trottier told Caribou News in Brief. “And I think that’s fair.
“We should be waiting for them to give us a sign, but the way we’ve approached this is we think it’s right and it’s okay and we just keep lobbying for it.”
BRAINSTORMING ON A BRAND NEW PLAN
BQCMB technical committee members will tackle some critical issues in Flin Flon, Manitoba from Feb. 3 – 4 as part of the board’s larger goal to create a new management plan for the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds as soon as possible. Incoming secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson will facilitate the workshop.
Committee member Deb Johnson has urged that talks focus on resources (dollars and other assistance) that governments can commit to herd and habitat management, how to make community-based monitoring sustainable, the need to monitor factors that limit caribou herd populations, nailing down population indicators, and determining whether indicators pick up on subtle changes in caribou populations or detect only major declines.
The new management plan will become the board’s new guiding document, stepping in where the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Plan 1996-2002 left off. The two herds haven’t been surveyed since 1994, and the government of Nunavut has called for a new management scheme that incorporates hunter observations and uses tools like reconnaissance surveys – less costly than population surveys – as a first step in population analysis. Monitoring won’t provide exact numbers but will show generally whether the herd is increasing or decreasing, providing the clues that would trigger a survey or not.
THE FIRST STEP ON A LONG ROAD
Consultations with northern Manitoba and Kivalliq communities about which route could become a possible cross-border road should start in the fall or winter of 2004 – the first major step since a prefeasibility study raised the idea of linking Nunavut to the rest of Canada five years ago.
The $1.1 million route selection study finally secured a crucial $500,000 in funding from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) last October. The governments of Nunavut and Manitoba, Transport Canada, and the Kivalliq Inuit Association will foot the rest of the bill. Just three corridors, all leading to Rankin Inlet, now vie for the title of winning path: one going to Lynn Lake, another to Gillam and a third new possibility to Thompson.
The road, a winter road to be rebuilt each year until demand warrants an all-season road, would stretch more than 1,200 kilometres. The 1999 prefeasibility study pegged a winter road at $17-$21 million with $6-$7 million in annual maintenance costs – a mere fraction of the $1.6-$1.9 billion required for a paved all-weather road.
“Largely, this route is a supply route. We’re talking about moving goods rather than people,” Manitoba Transportation director Amar Chadha told Caribou News in Brief. “We want to avoid lakes, we want to avoid sensitive areas, water crossings,” in part because fuel is likely to be transported and the possibility of toxic spills in sensitive habitat has to be eliminated.
Public consultations critical
Of top priority will be consulting with northerners directly affected by the road, says Chadha, who spoke to BQCMB members at November’s meeting in Winnipeg. Tadoule Lake, Lac Brochet, Brochet, Lynn Lake, South Indian Lake, Gillam, Thompson, Churchill, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet, Whale Cove, and Arviat will all be visited.
At November’s meeting, Manitoba BQCMB member Jerome Denechezhe of Lac Brochet stressed the importance of fully consulting each community, not just its leaders. “There’s not too much information going to the communities,” Denechezhe later told Caribou News in Brief.
“We don’t have any input at all. That should change. There’s just no question about that.”
An advisory committee of key community representatives would also help ensure that residents’ concerns are reflected in the study.
After public consultations, the route selection study will analyze social/economic, transportation and environmental issues, then explore road development standards. The road may end up as a single lane, with passing opportunities at certain points, or it may be a two-way highway. Chadha said the study will also investigate how new technologies could improve the long, lonely journey. For example, drivers might be given satellite transporters upon setting out so that they know exactly where they’re travelling.
The route selection process will narrow the field down to the chosen route, then officials will visit northern communities once more to inform people about final study results.
CARIBOU MONITORING: ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL
When a hunter out on the Arctic tundra sizes up a caribou to figure out what changes could be affecting that animal and its habitat, he may have a checklist of clues that’s very different from that of his neighbour south of the treeline.
After all, the geography and weather conditions between the two places are different. So are the cultures.
Recognizing that one size doesn’t fit all in the world of caribou monitoring, the BQCMB’s caribou monitoring project – which studies caribou, caribou range and community use in relation to climate change and land use activities – is adding a step in tandem with the program evaluation to make sure that caribou monitoring is custom-tailored to the needs of individual communities.
Since 2001, the caribou monitoring project has been active in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut where 80 hunters have been interviewed using questions adapted from the Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op community-based monitoring program in NWT, Yukon and Alaska.
Sixteen Kivalliq elders were also interviewed in 2003, based on a shorter, slightly different set of questions. But before taking the same sets of questions down to the southern part of the range, the project’s community liaison, Anne Kendrick, will talk to people in select communities first to find out what indicators they think the project should be monitoring (see “Making the connection”).
Hunters and Trappers Organizations (HTOs) in Baker Lake and Arviat helped improve interview questions used in their communities. Project coordinator Leslie Wakelyn points out, though, that they were only asked to comment on the existing approach and interview questions.
Time out for reflection
No interviews in Baker Lake or Arviat have been slated for this year. And plans to obtain the perspectives of Tadoule Lake hunters through three seasonal hunting seasons, starting in the fall of 2003, were scuttled when caribou failed to show up.
“There’s hardly no caribous,” said BQCMB member Albert Thorassie, who had volunteered earlier in 2003 to query Tadoule Lake hunters for their observations of caribou while collecting harvest data for the community, a task he has routinely performed since the 1990s. Thorassie, with assistance from former BQCMB Manitoba member Cam Elliott, drafted detailed questionnaires for hunters to answer. But a recent trend that’s seen a large number of caribou veer off toward Lac Brochet and northern Saskatchewan persisted this year.
Last August in Black Lake, Kendrick spoke to about 500 Dene from Saskatchewan, NWT, Alberta, Manitoba and the United States (Navajo) about the prospect of bringing the monitoring program to northern Saskatchewan. The occasion was the annual Denesuline Gathering. “People in communities in Saskatchewan were very positive about it,” Kendrick remarked.
Does it build capacity?
Environment Canada’s Northern Ecosystem Initiative (NEI), an early funder of the monitoring project, interviewed Wakelyn last December as part of an assessment to figure out how NEI can enhance the capacity of northerners to identify and address environmental concerns important to sustainable northern ecosystems and communities.
“There is a better connection between the (Baker Lake and Arviat) HTOs and the Caribou Management Board than before this project happened,” said Wakelyn. “The board held public meetings in communities before, but they didn’t make an effort to meet specifically with the HTOs or band councils in those communities. This project has helped to raise the capacity of the board to incorporate information from communities into their decision-making process.”
She also detailed the headaches of long-term planning when funding is given on a year-to-year basis, especially for long-term monitoring, and suggested that NEI could play a role in directing projects to other funding sources when money from existing sources runs out.
MAKING THE CONNECTION
The federal government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the BQCMB, the University of Manitoba and the Centre for Community-Based Resource Management have all allocated funds to an ambitious new BQCMB project that aims to systematically create links between community knowledge and scientific data.
A number of other funding partners are being approached to help offset the $209,000 cost of the project, including INAC, DSD in Nunavut and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board.
While there are lots of policies and programs in place to create links between traditional and scientific knowledge, few try to do so in a methodical way.
This research effort, which would feature workshops in six range communities beginning in March, is the brainchild of Anne Kendrick, community liaison for the BQCMB’s caribou monitoring project. (The list of communities to be visited is still being finalized.) The University of Manitoba PhD graduate will also spearhead the project, courtesy of the two-year post-doctoral position she was awarded at the university.
The idea developed during an evaluation of the caribou monitoring project. Eighty interviews done with hunters from Baker Lake and Arviat in 2001 and 2002 documented much valuable information. A 44-page questionnaire plus a mapping exercise added up to lengthy interviews, though. Kendrick’s goal is “to talk with people about trying to target indicators that are of relevance and make most sense to monitor year-to-year in communities around the range,” she said.
“The things that are being asked of people may be different depending on their location
. . . on the range because the ecological and cultural situations are different.” The project will also link the mapped data from Baker Lake and Arviat hunters with the vegetation and/or satellite-collaring data collected on the Qamanirjuaq range by DSD.
HIGHLY RESPECTED “ELDER” RETIRES FROM THE BQCMB
BQCMB members chuckle during a light-hearted tribute to Abrahamson
BQCMB members chuckle during a light-hearted tribute to Abrahamson, part of a special farewell that included dinner and gifts for the longtime secretary-treasurer, including a book, a handcrafted Dene basket, and framed artwork (below)
image
Photos by Deb Johnson
Long-time secretary-treasurer Gunther Abrahamson, the man who remained the heart and soul of the BQCMB since engineering its creation almost 23 years ago, becomes the board’s first honorary member following his retirement this May. Former BQCMB chairman Ross Thompson will assume the reins.
Board members and others saluted Abrahamson at his final board meeting in November with a warm and upbeat dinner and presentation. Abrahamson was a board member between 1982 and 1984, and began working for the board first as its treasurer (1982 – 1988), and from 1988, as its secretary as well.
More than two decades ago, Abrahamson – who headed INAC’s social and cultural
development division at the time – was handed the daunting task of persuading Inuit, Dene, Métis, and various government officials to work together on a joint management board. At the time it was thought the caribou herds were in crisis, although evidence later showed that population estimates might have been based on inadequate or inaccurate surveys.
Never to be forgotten
The honorary membership “was like recognizing (Abrahamson) as an elder,” says vice-chairman Tim Trottier, who suggested the idea to board colleagues. “Nobody has
that history like Gunther has. . . . That’s not replaceable.”
“He did a very tremendous, good job,” adds board member and former chairman Jerome Denechezhe, who has worked alongside Abrahamson since 1982. “We rely on Gunther for a lot of stuff,” and preparing meetings, taking notes, and moving board issues forward are part of that list.
“He was right on top of things,” agrees Denechezhe’s colleague Albert Thorassie, an observer since 1986 and board member since 1991. “If you miss something, he’ll let you know by mail or getting the mail to us on time where we can sit down and look our stuff over before we go to meetings.”
Thorassie also lamented the valuable store of long-term knowledge that is leaving the board with the retirement of people like Abrahamson and, before him, venerable caribou biologist Don Thomas in 1999.
An experienced hand returns
Trottier, Denechezhe and Thorassie all voiced confidence, though, in incoming secretary-treasurer Thompson, the BQCMB’s vice-chairman from 1983 to 1990, and its chairman until 1993.
Thompson, a biologist who worked more than 30 years for the government of Manitoba, holds down another part-time job as mayor of Stonewall, a community of 4,000 near Winnipeg.
A good sense of humour, strong communication skills, and a knack for bringing people to consensus have held Thompson in good stead throughout his career.
While Thompson notes that board membership has changed over the years, “the teamwork seems to be there, the goodwill is there but I just get a sense that . . . we need to keep the pressure on governments to capitalize on the board,” and to push for continued funding and partnering with other agencies.
As for his predecessor, “competence, goodwill, big-hearted” are the words that Thompson uses to describe Abrahamson in his dealings with people and the caribou resource. “He’s truly a mentor of mine, he’s a friend of all that are on the board.”
AN OPEN LETTER
Abrahamson will be replaced by the able Ross Thompson (right),
Abrahamson will be replaced by the able Ross Thompson (right), a former BQCMB chairman and vice-chairman
Photo by Leslie Wakelyn
In early 1981, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development asked me to explore the possibility of setting up a Caribou Management Board made up of representatives from aboriginal communities in northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and representatives from the governments of Canada, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. In the spring, summer and fall of that year, I visited communities to discuss the idea. Aboriginal hunters were suspicious, and governments were not prepared to share their authority. But after a number of meetings, and some discussion, an agreement to form the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board was reached at a public meeting in Yellowknife in October 1981. Everybody compromised. Aboriginal people yielded on their demand for full control through a user board, and governments agreed to take a minority position on the BQCMB. After over half a century of working in northern Canada, from the Yukon to Labrador, the formation of the Board remains a highlight of my career. It is with some regret, therefore, that I have decided to retire. But I shall remember with pleasure the many incidents we shared in the past, the friendships we made and how we learned to talk to each other. The Board is now in its third decade and there are many issues to tackle. I wish you every success in facing these challenges. I am honoured that you have made me an honorary member and will be there for you if you should need me.
– Gunther Abrahamson
PEOPLE AND CARIBOU
Robert Moshenko
Photo by Leslie Wakelyn
“Obviously, everyone’s going to miss Gunther and I don’t think it’s going to sink in until he’s not there at the meeting,” related BQCMB’s caribou monitoring project co-ordinator Leslie Wakelyn after the November board meeting, voicing the feelings of many about the retirement of board founder, former board member and long-time secretary-treasurer Gunther Abrahamson.
In a gathering that recognized long-standing dedication to preserving caribou, board members also lauded founding member Jerome Denechezhe of Lac Brochet. He has served since June 1982, and members will present him with a bound set of the BQCMB’s original newsletter, Caribou News, in appreciation.
A few board members couldn’t be on hand to bid Abrahamson adieu, including the Government of Nunavut’s Dan Shewchuk, who was recovering from a nasty fall from a treestand while deerhunting in southern Canada. But many others did migrate to Winnipeg: Robert Moshenko and Paul Pemik of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, BQCMB Saskatchewan alternate members Pierre Robillard and Joe Martin (whose passage was paid for by the Prince Albert Grand Council), Amar Chadha and David Duncan of Manitoba Transportation, Steve Kearney of Manitoba Conservation, incoming secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson, Micheline Manseau of Parks Canada, BQCMB caribou monitoring project coordinator Leslie Wakelyn and community liaison Anne Kendrick, and Cumberland Resources’ Martin Gebauer of Vancouver, who updated board members on his company’s efforts to launch the Meadowbank gold mine north of Baker Lake.
The Qamanirjuaq caribou exhibit
The Qamanirjuaq caribou exhibit at Wapusk National Park
Photo courtesy of Cam Elliott
Last November’s territorial elections swept in a new minister for the NWT’s Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development: 32-year-old Brendan Bell, a second-term MLA for Yellowknife South.
Visitors to the Wapusk National Park Visitor Centre in northern Manitoba have really warmed to a new exhibit that explains the historic importance of Qamanirjuaq caribou to residents, says former BQCMB member Cam Elliott, the park’s superintendent. The exhibit features a mannequin clothed in caribou skins, a stuffed caribou, stone and bone tools, pictures, interpretive panels in Dene, Inuktitut, English and French, and a video produced for Parks Canada by former Tadoule Lake resident and filmmaker Alan Code. The BQCMB also contributed some of its illustrated caribou educational booklets as well as a map.
