Apparent caribou slaughter pu les wildlife officials

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — It seems to have been a senseless slaughter: a cluster of 10 caribou, shot dead in the snow and left for ravens and foxes to pick apart.

The carnage is the apparent result of a shooting spree by some trigger-happy Iqaluit gunman.

Wildlife officials want to find out who killed the caribou, and why.

According to Stephen Pinksen, the GN’s senior advisor for wildlife enforcement, some snowmobilers found the dead animals last week about 15 kilometres northwest of Iqaluit.

Neither meat nor hide appears to have been cut from the carcasses.

While it’s not yet certain they were shot, they seem to have all died at about the same time — around four weeks ago — and were all within a few hundred yards of each other.

“We’ve never seen that in a natural mortality situation,” Pinksen said. “It seems unlikely to be natural causes.”

A metal detector was to be taken to the site yesterday to search for the bullets that might have killed the creatures. Bone samples will also be collected and analysed to determine if the caribou starved to death.

If the caribou were shot, Pinksen admits that pinpointing the perpetrator will be almost impossible — unless someone comes forward with information about the crime.

He’s urging anyone with clues about the deaths to call the Iqaluit district office of the Nunavut Wildlife Service at 979-7800.

“If we could convince someone to come forward with some information we’d be that much further ahead,” he said.

If a shooter is caught, they could suffer a big blow to their pocketbook. Wastage of big-game meat is punishable in Nunavut with a fine of up to $1,000.

Even worse might be the public scorn the gunman would suffer in a place that prides itself on ethical hunting.

Pinksen said wildlife officials will be combing the site for evidence that a shooter might have left behind. If nothing incriminating is discovered, they’ll wait until the snow melts and search the area again.

The apparent massacre is reminiscent of an incident five years ago when 11 healthy caribou were killed near Iqaluit’s water reservoir less than a kilometre outside of town.

None of those animals were skinned or cleaned, but many were missing their hind legs and haunches.

At the time some Iqalungmuit speculated that the missing meat — carved from the fleshiest part of the animal — was being sold to the town’s restaurants to be served as steaks.

Nobody was caught for that offense and no motive was ever determined.

Such mass shootings are rare in Nunavut, Pinksen said.

Occasionally, someone will shoot a caribou, find it’s not fat enough, and abandon the animal in search of a meatier one, he said.

But the sheer scope of this latest killing makes it very serious.

“I think this is a pretty big issue, in the wildlife world, anyway,” Pinksen said.