New Nunavut narwhal management plan gets lukewarm reception

This map shows the six “management units” for narwhal in Nunavut waters — the DFO, which is now consulting with communities, wants to see the hunt reduced in for Northern Hudson Bay and East Baffin Island. (FILE IMAGE)

A new draft management plan for narwhal received a thumbs-down in Repulse Bay last week at a meeting organized by the the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

There, representatives from Hunters and Trappers Organizations in Repulse Bay, Cape Dorset, Kimmirut, Hall Beach, and Igloolik were cool to the DFO proposal, which would see quotas distributed and managed according to population stocks rather than by community, the way it’s now done.

And, in the case of northern Hudson Bay, this means that hunters would see their quota shrink to a shared quota of 57 from the current quota of 117 for the region.

In its six new “management units,” DFO wants new quotas set according to “science advice” — as soon as possible — “to reduce the likelihood of local depletions” of the northern Hudson Bay narwhal stock and the Jones Sound stock.

In northern Hudson bay, the reduced quotas, in effect since 2008, haven’t yet been implemented, the DFO says in a document prepared on narwhal.

The DFO says overhunting and increased killer whale predation could be behind a drop in the numbers of narwhal in northern Hudson Bay, where the narwhal population is thought to be a fraction of what it was in 1984 and 2000.

The reduced hunt means less narwhal maktak but also less money for the communities, mainly through the sales of narwhal tusks.

A 2011 study, “The Economic Value of Narwhal and Beluga Hunts in Hudson Bay, Nunavut,” says Repulse Bay generated the highest revenue, with nearly half a million dollars coming into the community through its narwhal hunt.

Estimates for the numbers of narwhal in Nunavut waters are more than 80,000.

And the DFO and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. have disputed the data on narwhal populations since December 2010.

That’s when DFO decided not to issue a special type of report called a “non-detrimental finding” on the export of narwhal parts from narwhal management regions in the eastern Arctic.

Narwhal have been listed since 1979 on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Under this CITES agreement, Canada must show that allowing the export of an Appendix II species is not detrimental or harmful to the survival of the species.

Canada’s decision not to issue a non-detrimental finding in December 2010 on the export of narwhal parts effectively amounted to an export ban throughout Nunavut.

After a court challenge by NTI, which was later dropped, and new 2010 survey results, the DFO decided to partially lift the trade restrictions.

It released revised positive non-detrimental findings reports on four of the six summering stocks of narwhal in Nunavut — but not for northern Hudson Bay and Jones Sound.

But now the pressure is on DFO, along with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, to approve a narwhal management plan by January 2013 because Canada heads to Thailand to take part in CITES’ Convention of the Parties in March 2013 and show it’s managing narwhal properly.

(revised March 28)