Nunavut plans big survey of Baffin caribou herds

The Government of Nunavut plans to survey the entire caribou population of Baffin Island. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut’s Department of Environment is preparing for what may be the most extensive helicopter survey of wildlife the territory has ever seen: a research project aimed at a population estimate for Baffin Island’s entire caribou population.

At more than half a million square kilometres, Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world and easily the largest in Canada.

With all that room for caribou to roam on, hunters and scientists agree the animals have become hard to find.

Because of the huge area involved, Baffin Island’s caribou have never been surveyed as a whole, Baffin regional biologist Debbie Jenkins said.

“The proposed Baffin island survey is unique and groundbreaking in some ways because the magnitude of the survey,” she said.

Plans have not yet been finalized, but the upcoming survey will put local hunters into the helicopters as expert spotters.

Ideally, Jenkins said she would like the study to work as well as a recent pilot study conducted on the Belcher Islands.

Hunters from Sanikiluaq took samples from every caribou they harvested, including feces, blood, teeth, jawbones and left hind legs.

Reaserchers used the samples to rest for diseases, parasites, diet and to acquire genetic information.

Sanikiluaq didn’t have land animals to hunt until caribou were introduced there in 1978.

Jenkins guessed hunters there were particularly interested in managing the herd because they remember what it’s like to not have them.

But because of the current scarcity of caribou on Baffin Island, Jenkins anticipated that it might be hard to convince hunters to part with the valuable meat of a leg.

So the sampling procedures are still being negotiated with Inuit.

Inuit traditional knowledge lies at the heart of the proposed study’s objectives.

Projects like the proposed railway between the proposed iron mine at Mary River and its accompanying port at Steensby Inlet “make it even more critical to get this information,” she said.

One big question Jenkins hopes to answer is whether the caribou herds of Baffin Island have declined in number, or whether they have simply moved to other areas.

Caribou are known to migrate thousands of kilometres, but if the herds still exist in their former numbers, no-one seems to know where they are.

“The hunters were having a hard time even finding caribou, even in the places where they have traditionally found them,” Jenkins said.

Various regions have been surveyed, most recently the North Baffin area outside Pond Inlet in March and April of 2008 and 2009.

A helicopter traveled east and west through the designated area, each trip 10 km south of the last.

Jenkins pointed out that the people on the helicopter would not have seen every animal because of the distance between these “transect lines”, but the number sighted can be used to estimate the number in the area at the time.

Out of 80,000 square kilometers surveyed over two seasons only 166 animals were counted, not including confirmed repeat sightings.

She couldn’t say what the final estimate would be because she’s still working on a mathematical model to use to interpret the field data.

Along the way, researchers and assistants captured 30 adult female caribou — with nets, not tranquilizers — and fitted them with GPS collars.

Those collars are still active, transmitting their hosts’ locations be satellite twice a day. One their batteries run out after two years, the collars will fall off on their own.

Males don’t get collared because their necks swell during mating rut, making collars likely to loosen and hurt the animal.