NTI threatens lawsuit over narwhal ivory ban

UPDATED 2:00 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. is threatening legal action against the federal government after being blindsided by an unexpected export ban on narwhal tusks that affects most of Nunavut and part of the Northwest Territories.

“It was a total shock and surprise,” said NTI’s director of wildlife, Gabriel Nirlungayuk, of a letter from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that he received in early December.

Nirlingayuk said that the DFO had not consulted with Inuit before banning a trade that could affect their traditional livelihood, and that DFO has violated the Nunavut land claims agreement.

“I would like for DFO to explain themselves to these affected communities because they will no longer able to do any trade, whether it’s a tusk, or if that tusk is carved, so they will not be able to export it out of Canada,” Nirlingayuk said.

Cathy Towtongie, the new NTI president, said in a Dec. 15 news release that NTI is now looking at “legal options.”

“DFO does not have the right to impose restrictions upon Inuit, particularly when the population is thriving and harvest numbers do not threaten the species,” Towtongie said.

The letter from Sylvie Lapointe of DFO’s CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) management uthority suggests a political reason for the move:

“As many of you are aware, CITES has taken particular interest in the harvesting and trade in narwhal product… Canada is concerned that CITES could take even greater measures, such as imposing a trade ban on narwhal tusks derived from the Canadian hunt should it be deemed to be non-sustainable,” Lapointe’s letter said.

CITES is the international treaty that governs trade in the body parts of endangered species.

Narwhals are listed on CITES Appendix II, meaning any international trade in their body parts must be backed up by a “non-detriment finding,” an official report from the national government’s science body that the hunt won’t deplete the species’ population.

According to the NDF report from the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, three of nine narwhal population management units in Canada are overharvested: Admiralty Inlet, East Baffin Island and North Hudson Bay.

The NDF says the most severe overhunting is in Admiralty Inlet, near Arctic Bay.

The estimated narwhal population there is 5,362 but could be up to twice that number due to statistical uncertainty.

The NDF recommends that the annual total allowable landed catch there should be 28, but Arctic Bay’s quota is 130 per year.

There was a population survey done for Admiralty Inlet in August 2010, but the results of that survey won’t be available until 2012 so the NDF used the most recent field studies available, which date from from 2003.

The export ban also affects narwhal populations where there isn’t enough scientific data to estimate the animals’ numbers: Parry Channel, Jones Sound and Smith Sound, all located in the northernmost regions of the Canadian Arctic.

The narwhal populations of Somerset Island and Eclipse Sound are fine, the report says.

That means that only tusks harvested out of Kugaaruk, Taloyoak, Gjoa Haven, Igloolik and Pond Inlet can still be legally moved outside of Canada.

These population management units are based on the narwhal’s common summering areas, though the report acknowledges that narwhals harvested in spring and summer migrations seasons could be from neighbouring populations.

The NDF recommends reducing harvest quotas and redistributing them according to these management units instead of by community, as well as more field research.

But Nirlingayuk said the NDF’s population division based on summer stocks was flawed because most individual whales don’t return to the same places from one summer to the next, so the species’s distribution is much more fluid than the NDF claims.

For example, there were no narwhals near Taloyoak until 20 years ago, he said, and that demonstrates how populations move regardless of how they are tracked on a map.

“There were no concerns before DFO started putting different summering stocks,” Nirlungayuk said. “Once they started putting these different summering stocks it became a concern which we didn’t know.”

Nirlingayuk said species should be looked at as a whole with a population estimated around 80,000 to 100,000 whales.

Inuit harvest roughly 500 per year, NTI’s statement said.

The official NDF report is available at .

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Non-Detriment Report on Narwhal