Nunavut hotline callers claim boom times for polar bear

A male polar bear prowls near the shore of the Bellot Strait between the Boothia Penninsula and Somerset Island in September, 2009. Countries will vote on a proposal to ban the commercial trade of polar bear parts during meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), scheduled for Doha, Qatar this March. (FILE PHOTO)

Callers to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s polar bear hotline have spoken and they’re saying bear populations are booming.

Paul Irngaut, a wildlife advisor with NTI, said he’s interviewed 35 hunters through the hotline. They report signs of climate change, including thinning sea ice, but say that polar bears are adapting to the changes—and thriving, Irngaut said.

“Yes climate change is happening, but [hunters] don’t feel it’s going to have a negative impact on polar bears,” Irngaut said Monday. “Polar bears hunt on land, they hunt on open water.”

In fact, Irngaut said hunters view thinning sea ice as a boon for polar bears because it makes hunting for seals easier. And hunters also reported larger numbers of polar bears on land near communities, where they’ve been damaging food caches and cabins.

What exactly that proves about the health of individual bears isn’t certain, but Irngaut said it’s proof polar bear populations are healthy and growing.

“The polar bear population has exploded to the point that Inuit are seeing bears that they never used to see.”

“The future of the polar bear is bright,” he said. But that’s a minority opinion these days, with conservation groups and many scientists claiming that the loss of sea ice due to climate change means the polar bear is facing habitat loss, which will eventually put pressure on population numbers, which total around 25,000 around the world. More than 15,000 of those bears are found in Canada.

NTI set up the toll-free number last month to collect local knowledge on polar bears ahead of the vote on a controversial proposal by the United States that would effectively ban the commercial trade of polar bear parts.

That proposal is to before a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), scheduled for Doha, Qatar this March. NTI plans to present information from the hotline at the conference.

“Polar bear habitat is both decreasing in area and quality,” the US proposal reads. “The decrease in polar bear habitat exacerbates all other potential threats including but not limited to, utilization and trade, disease or predation, contaminants, ecotourism and shipping.”

The US document also claims that only four of the world’s 19 polar bear subpopulations are stable or growing, while the rest are declining or lack sufficient data.

The Canadian response, posted online at www.cites.org, argues that CITES is not the right way to protect the polar bear, although unlike callers to NTI’s hotline, it agrees that climate change is a threat to bear populations.

“Increasing international trade restrictions will not mitigate the climate change impacts affecting the polar bear and many other species, and will harm the livelihoods of Canadian Aboriginal peoples.”

The US proposal would put an end to the sport hunt of polar bears in Canada, which Irngaut estimates is worth between $2 million and $3 million per year to Nunavut’s economy.

“For cash-strapped communities with low job rates, it’s a huge impact,” he said.

While Canada’s position might diverge from NTI’s view that climate change is not a serious threat to polar bear populations, Irngaut said NTI is grateful for Ottawa’s opposition to the US proposal.

And he echoes the Canadian CITES documents, which argue that the sport hunt has no impact on bear populations, because tags used in sport hunts come from the overall quota, which is set under a joint management system including the federal and territorial governments and Inuit.

NTI, the regional Inuit associations and the Government of Nunavut all plan to send representatives to Doha in March to lobby against the proposed trade ban. But Irngaut doesn’t sound optimistic the proposal can be defeated.

“We’re just one country against 175,” he said.

Hunters can call the hotline toll-free at 1-877-975-4901, or in Iqaluit at 979-4901. Irngaut said there has been a strong response from hunters in the Baffin region, but that he’d like to hear more from hunters in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions.