Barren-ground caribou shouldn’t be listed as threatened: GN
Deputy minister says territorial government plan already addresses concerns over decline of some herds
Nunavut Environment Minister Daniel Qavvik said his government does not support barren-ground caribou being listed as threatened under the federal Species At Risk Act. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
The Government of Nunavut does not support the possible listing of barren-ground caribou as a threatened species, according to GN Environment Minister Daniel Qavvik.
Consultations are underway that could lead to the species being listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.
The first round of consultations opened in 2018.
In the legislative assembly Monday, Qavvik said some of the federal government’s consultations “were considered inadequate by some communities.”
Baker Lake MLA Craig Simailak noted that in July 2022, the acting chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board wrote that the board approved listing barren-ground caribou as threatened. That was with the condition that a recovery plan be undertaken on a herd-by-herd basis.
The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is made up of a group of nine appointed members who are mandated under the Nunavut Agreement to manage wildlife in the territory. The board did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Back at the legislative assembly, Simailak asked Qavvik how his department will support Kivalliq hunters and trappers organizations on barren-ground caribou herd management and recovery plans.
Qavvik said that if barren-ground caribou were listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act, the federal government would be required to come up with a recovery strategy and identification of critical habitat.
“Certainly, the Department of Environment will continue to consult with the hunters and trappers organization and affected communities in the Kivalliq region,” he said.
On Tuesday, Yvonne Niego, the Environment Department’s deputy minister, said Nunavut has a good co-management system with groups in the territory that can adequately address concerns over current declines of some caribou herds.
“A listing of barren-ground caribou under [the Species at Risk Act] will not change how management of caribou is implemented” in Nunavut, she said in an email to Nunatsiaq News.
Have Calm Air and Canadian North agreed to publish how much caribou have been shipped throughout the Territory over the last couple of years?
I know the Airlines have moved toward implementing a policy where the cheap rate for shipping County Food is only to family members. If they ship to someone else, they will not get the rate.
the sheer number of bins and boxes of caribou have skyrocketed. I’m sure it has had an impact on the number of caribou.
Will look at YZF Can-North Cargo, the freezer is full with Caribou being sold out of Spence Bay, and Rankin, all for sell as they say.
I appreciate that there is ongoing and good concern for the various Caribou herds. This article seems to imply all’s good in the Caribou world. Given the issues on Baffin Island and Victoria island with very few Caribou. This story isn’t complete with out pointing too various other issues involving the all to important Caribou herds. There needs to be serious discussion about responsible hunting and quotas to create new mindsets around harvesting. These article’s are important and need to keep coming, there’s a lot of concern out there and rightly so.
But …it is.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Does GN state that climate change is a myth and caribou and other wild life need not worry?
thank you for asking
mr speaker to be honest my staff have not told me yet
thank you mr speaker
I do not know why I am environment minister as I do not think there is no need to protect the environment at all. I do not see it in my notes from the department, so I agree with the member. What a lost minister.
You can do that, only if Kivalliq hunters stop killing caribou enmass, they sell to Baffin at very inflated prices, ripping people off….
Add all the equipment to hunt.
Snowmobile $15k, qamutiks $3k, grubs and tools $5k, gas $1k
It takes few years to acquire all of these equipment mentioned above. Also, you need land knowledge to go hunting.
Everybody chooses what they do with their time.
When you factor in everything needed and required to take for the hunt trip, especially boating season the total money involved in the trip skyrocket
You know, with all these expenses and the need for longterm storage and transportation of goods… It’s almost like it’s a job or work or something instead of sustenance hunting.
Then perhaps selling part need to be regulated, which would mean NTI dealing with it.
I went out hunting last weekend and before that, must’ve been like 3 thousand in one spot and hundreds if not thousands more walking south and west to meet the same herd, I know more are going to gather to the herds before they go on south. Barren ground caribou will always thrive, ask the locals who hunted for years. Not the persons who are in the office full time. oh, and they are healthy 3 inches of fat every one of them not counting the calf’s.
Perhaps the common misconception is that Inuit “own” the land.😱 as other democracy does. No. Inuit do Not “own”the land. They are a part of it. One Can NOT separate them.
No matter how much a politician at Parliament Hill shouts,….You can’t do that to me!!! I’m a Real Canadian!!!”
Then what is the meaning of Nunavut?
If they’re threatened they’re threatened … I don’t care what this minister or “some communities” think. The science should be more than sufficient to make this determination. No opinion should be necessary.
Ah, the great and amazing interconnected circle of life.
Caribou are on a 50-70 year cycle of scarcity and plenty.
Humans follow this cycle too by either taking caribou for granted, or expecting them to go completely extinct.
You can sure tell the guys in Ottawa dusted off their copies of Hardly-Know-It’s Never Cry Wolf and People of the Deer a few years ago.
50-70 years is a convenient span of time for people – more than enough years to forget we acted the fool by pretending to know enough about caribou to predict their demise.
They need to put them books back in their libraries again until about 2080 when the great circle of life will wind around again to times of relative scarcity.
The Federal Government should list caribou as an endangered species.
The GN, HTO’s (other than the Rankin HTO asking residents to stop the slaughter of pregnant cows last spring) and NTI are standing by and allowing the complete slaughter of the Qaminirjuaq herd. We are supplying Baffin Island with caribou meat, facebook sales are destroying our once great herd. We are of course waiting until it is too late, NTI/GN, the time is now to put in a limited quota for commercial meat sales, Outfitters in Nunavut have a limited number of tags which is the way it should be managed. There need to be a limit put in place. I know NTI’s argument is that Inuit have the right to sell meat. Okay, I agree that we do but put in a limit as the resource is not unlimited. The out of control slaughter of our herd will cost all of us our way of life. You just need to look at what is happening to every herd around us, this will happen to the Kivalliq sooner than later. Caribou hunting bans in Quebec, Labrador, NWT, etc. I wish our leaders would acknowledge what is going on and make the hard decisions for the future of our caribou herds. Greed/Money, just like in the whaling and trapping days can destroy our way of life for generations. As Inuit, we are acting exactly like the whalers of the 1800’s, kill every caribou we can for profit. It is disgusting to witness…The absolute slaughter of caribou for profit.
You are absolutely right for the need to manage, at several levels. The problem is, politically, the “leaders” will not say anything because they want to get elected again, as this situation is potentially a time bomb. People simply do not understand, or do not care, and any “leadership” decision that contradicts their opinions and/or activities would result in lost votes.
There’s two land owners in Nunavut, crown and inuit own land (IOL).
You forgot Gov of Nunavut and City/Hamlets.
IF IT BASE ON SCIENCE THEN iT ShOuLdnt be QuEsTiONeP!!!!!
That’s not how science works though. Science works because it encourages scrutiny and questioning. The discovery of ‘truth’ is a process that involves multiple competing perspectives.
How about traditional knowledge? Does it encourage questioning, rethinking, criticism and refutability?
Look at the past history of the caribou in the last 50 years, in all of the north. Not traditional knowledge, not science, common sense, overharvesting, but I am allowed to, because they are mine, and look at northern Manitoba and saskatchewn, overharvesting. And I will blame mines, governments, and everybody but myself, because that’s the way it is today.
As a child about 5 yrs old, I listened to an elder talking about how there used to be caribou just across the bay where the community was and pointed out that in the future they would come back. I honestly thought that he was telling tales as he would tell legends too. In my 40’s the caribou came back in the hundreds of thousands. Today there is not so much but most of us get enough for the winter and leave the rest. Nature runs in cycles so when the CWF says animals are going extinct we know that it’s not the case. Some examples: In the late 50’s to the early 60’s we were told not to shoot Snow Geese, Musk Ox and Polar Bears. Today Snow Geese are a nuisance ripping up farmlands and the fauna up north from being too numerous. Musk Oxen are driving out caribou and we are often scared to go out camping from Polar Bears coming into our camps. My point? Let nature run their cycles and do not interfere with it and respect it!
This is anti-intellectual nonsense.
“Some examples: In the late 50’s to the early 60’s we were told not to shoot Snow Geese, Musk Ox and Polar Bears. Today Snow Geese are a nuisance ripping up farmlands”
You mean a decrease in predation led to an increase in population? You’re trying to oppose the science by highlighting how well it worked.
Response to John K. Iivigjuaq. As Inui we would be on the land just as families w/ no outsiders to monitor us. In the 60’s, mother was craving bird and father was claiming they are not allowed to be shot. At day’s end, he caught a couple birds and the feathers and bones were buried so no evidence of them carrying out tradition. In the day’s of yesteryear, they hunted bears all year and in dens too and cubs were a delicacy. Now they are overpopulated and are nuisance creatures instead of the once majestic animals they were. Do not live in musk-oxen country but folks that live around them would prolly claim it was overprotection that led to their over abundance.
I amount of caribou I see ever year going north if they start saying there almost gone no way will Iwill ever believe in that never
Teach people to hunt with the threat in mined that once you kill the producers, they don’t produce.
If you don’t have proper management the tuktu will be wiped out.
People are to greedy if they see 1o they shoot 10 whether they need or not. It’s a commercial business now for the Kiv.
No respect for the population. Maybe just to intitled.
Govt of Nunavut and City/Hamlets have only limited lands about 30 miles most.
If you sell the meat you’re not a hunter. You’re just working a job like everyone else. Hope you filed taxes for all that money the caribou made for you.
When Inuit negotiated the land claims agreement article 5 (pertaining to wildlife) in the eighties and early nineties, Inuit traditional values and customs were strong. Sharing country food with one’s extended family, elders. widows,
single mothers and community was expected free of charge. No one went hungry with traditional food. It was not forseen then by the Inuit negotiators that one day, years later, that many people would eventually loose those values and become greedy and not share country food with their families and community free of charge. This is very sad; hence, the food insecurity we are facing today in our communities. NTI needs to put to a vote with their membership to amend the free for all sale of country food to re-establish sharing country food for free within their communities and their families outside their community. Any law and right is amendable to benefit the wellbeing and health of their membership.