DFO increases 2010 Nunavik beluga quota

(Updated 28-04-10)

Nunavik hunters may take about 45 more belugas this year compared with last, due to an increase in the regional quota from 224 to 267, under the 2010 beluga management plan released this week by the Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board.

The minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea, recently approved the board’s plan.

“The plan strikes a balance between increased Inuit need for country food and conservation concerns for the Eastern Hudson Bay beluga stock,” said an April 28 news release from the Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board.

The eastern Hudson Bay beluga population is considered endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada,

Under the new management plan, hunters from the Hudson Strait communities of Ivujivik, Salluit, Kangiqsujuaq and Quaqtaq will be able to take 25 belugas per community, while hunters in larger Nunavik communities, like Kuujjuaq, Puvirnituq and Inukjuak, can take more belugas than the smaller communities in the rest of Nunavik.

Hunters in Kuujjuaq will see a quota of 25, a quota of 23 in Puvirnituq, and a quota of 22 in Inujuak.

The balance of the quota is split among smaller communities.

The plan to give higher quotas for hunters in Nunavik’s Hudson Strait and its more populous communities is much more fair than in the past, said Paulusi Novalinga, president of the Nunavik hunters and Anguivaq hunters and trappers association.

“I haven’t heard any complaints yet,” said Novalinga, speaking from his home in Puvirnituq earlier this week.

Johnny Oovaut, chairman of the Nunavik Marine Regional Wildlife Board, said the plan should relieve some of the tension around the Nunavik beluga hunt.

“There’s a lot of frustration still,” Oovaut said in an April 26 telephone interview from Quaqtaq.

Recent years’ cuts to beluga quotas and arrests for over-hunting caused social turmoil, he said.

Some Nunavimmiut were angry they didn’t get their share, either because their community’s quota was too low or they didn’t have the means to go out hunting themselves.

Oovaut’s goal is to eventually eliminate quotas for the beluga hunt in Nunavik.

“I think it would take back our culture. There would be less running around because we’ve always said that the management plan forces people to hunt beluga,” said Oovaut, who has never supported quotas for the beluga hunt.

“Now the hunting areas are overcrowded. We have inexperienced hunters trying to hunt beluga, and they really don’t know the right way to do it.”

Nunavik hunters are being asked to take most of the region’s quota of belugas from Hudson Strait to reduce the catch from eastern Hudson Bay, which biologists say is endangered.

Hunters are also required to hunt mainly in the summer and spring, not in the fall when thousands of belugas stream through the Hudson Strait.

Genetic analysis of belugas shows the spring and summer hunt in the Hudson Strait is preferable to hunting in the fall, because fewer belugas from the eastern Hudson Bay migrate through the strait at that time.

But the current beluga management plan is only valid for one year, Oovaut said.

That’s to allow marine biologists more time to produce more data James Bay population, which Inuit believe may be part of the Eastern Hudson Bay beluga population that relocated to the south.

If this is true, there may not be as few eastern Hudson Bay belugas as biologists believe.

“They’ve been researching for many years now. They should be able to answer us. We cannot decide something based on missing information,” Oovaut said.

The DFO surveyed the eastern Hudson Bay population in 2008 and determined its numbers dropped from 4,300 in 1985 to 3,000 in 2008.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada followed this up, saying belugas in eastern Hudson Bay are endangered, that is, at risk of extinction, and need a recovery plan.

The DFO says a recovery plan needs to aim for a population of about 70 per cent of this size or 8,750 because belugas in the eastern Hudson Bay were thought to number 12,500 in 1845.

This historical estimate doesn’t allow for much beluga hunting along the eastern Hudson Bay.

The Kativik Regional Government’s Uumajuit wildlife officers and hunting organizations will try to make sure Nunavik hunters stick to the quotas and sample their catch.

They’ll also make sure hunters don’t use maktaq to trade for other goods, including drugs or alcohol, a concern raised by the Nunavik Marine Regional Wildlife Board, whose members learned of a few incidents involving illegal bartering.

Nunavik’s hunters and trappers association, in collaboration with the DFO, worked on the plan before sending it to the Nunavik Marine Regional Wildlife Board.

This board, created by the Nunavut Inuit Land Claims Agreement, made recommendations and then passed on the final version to the DFO minister.

The board’s members — three appointed by Makivik, two by the federal government, one by the Government of Nunavut— include Oovaut, vice-chairman Robbie Tookalook, Luc Bélanger, Quisak Tarkiasuk, Johnny Peters, and Sandy Akavak.

One position on the seven-member board is vacant.

The board manages a $5-million research fund. It also can establish quotas, identify wildlife management zones and approve designations for endangered species.

The federal government then accepts, varies or rejects the decisions of the board.

But if changed or rejected, Ottawa must provide reasons and give the board another opportunity to present its arguments. 


“Instead of trying to convince someone of our culture, now we understand our culture— and they have to try and convince us that conservation is necessary and why,” Oovaut said.

But, while Nunavik hunters will be able to hunt more belugas in 2010, they won’t see any bowhead hunt this year.

Bowhead hunts were held in 2008 and 2009 in Kangiqsujuaq.

Oouvaut said these hunts were very expensive, running close to $200,000, and are “a real burden on the community hosting the hunt.”

As well the distribution and storage of maktaq, was logistically “very difficult,” he said.

Related:

• 2010 Nunavik Beluga Management Plan (PDF, 3.3 MB)

• Management plan press release (PDF, 88 KB)