DFO: hunters hold key to saving beluga

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Nunavik hunters need to find a solution to their continued resistance to beluga whale quotas, says a senior advisor to the federal government on aboriginal fisheries.

Michel Tremblay, a senior official with the Quebec aboriginal fisheries division of the federal Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s, suggests “only Inuit” can defuse the stand-off between the federal government and Nunavik hunters who are killing more belugas whales than allowed under a quota system imposed in 2002.

Tremblay says failure to meet the government’s quota system will mean the whales will eventually become extinct in certain areas of Nunavik.

Recently released statistics on the beluga whale hunt in Nunavik show that Nunavik hunters killed or wounded 217 whales last year, seven more than they’re allowed.

However, the statistics also reveal that certain communities are exceeding their share of 15 belugas per village. In some cases, hunters are killing whales in areas where whaling is completely banned. For example, whalers from Kuujjuaq surpassed quota, killing 26 beluga whales, and taking four illegally from Ungava Bay.

The government banned whaling in the Ungava Bay and Eastern Hudson Bay regions two years ago after aerial surveys indicated the Eastern Hudson Bay beluga population had dropped to 2,000 whales from 4,000 about 15 years earlier, and the Ungava Bay population was less than 200.

Tremblay suggests the best solution to protecting the belugas, as well as Nunavik’s traditional hunt, will come from the communities negotiating which villages will be allowed more than their quota, and which will have to hunt less.

Tremblay says Nunavik’s two government conservation officers cannot police hunters, or force them to follow the quotas, in part because the region is so big.

Currently, the officers must cover Nunavik’s 14 communities, strung along 250,000 kilometres of coastline.

“The solution is not law enforcement,” Tremblay said. “It will come from sensitization and information.”

But smaller communities claim they are already backing off to allow others to hunt above their quota.

Paulusi Novalinga, head of the Nunavik Hunters and Trappers Association, said hunters in Akulivik turned down the chance to go whale hunting in their approved area of the Hudson Straight when they heard the region was edging towards its limit.

“They did that out of great respect for the quotas,” Novalinga said. “We’re trying very hard to respect what we’re told.”

Novalinga says government efforts to protect beluga whale populations are targetting the wrong people.

He says hunters in Nunavik surpass the quota because their families need the food to survive. Inuit have hunted belugas whale for centuries, and follow their own principle of conservation, without government regulation.

“We never kill more than we need,” Novalinga said. “It’s our rule. It’s sacred to every living species. There’s a time to catch one species and then the next.”

Novalinga blames the decline in beluga populations on various pressures on the environment, such as noise pollution from planes and boats. He says that’s one reason why the annual quota should be increased to 20 whales per community, rather than 15.

Although he defends hunters’ right to take the amount of whale they need for subsistence, Novalinga says the solution to the hunting dispute will come through negotiations with the department of fisheries and oceans.

Government sources report that Makivik Corporation is currently setting up a permanent committee of elders and hunters to provide the fisheries department with input throughout the year. The committee’s work would mark a change from the periodic consultations held between hunters and government officials once or twice a year.