Gjoa Haven polar bear hunt revived

Despite a ban on hunting polar bears in their traditional hunting grounds, hunters from Gjoa Haven killed three polar bears last week.

They just had to travel to the neighbouring Gulf of Boothia for the hunt.

Gjoa Haven’s polar bear hunt was cut off last year when a survey of the M’Clintock Channel showed the number of animals had dropped to dangerously low levels.

To allow the population to recover, the United States banned all new polar bear trophies from the M’Clintock Channel, and Nunavut imposed a moratorium on the subsistence hunt in that area.

But earlier this month, Nunavut’s sustainable development department and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board decided Gjoa Haven would receive a temporary quota of three tags so the region’s hunters could hunt three polar bears in the nearby Gulf of Boothia.

This move doesn’t mean communities that normally hunt polar bears in the Gulf of Boothia have three fewer animals to hunt. The quota in the Gulf of Boothia was temporarily increased by three this year.

“We used quotas that were already there,” explained Nunavut’s minister of sustainable development, Olayuk Akesuk. “And we agreed to give three tags to Gjoa Haven.”

The Gulf of Boothia’s quota of 41 rose by three more animals because its polar bear population is considered to be healthy.

“Where we had good news for the Gulf of Boothia, we have not such good news from the M’Clintock Channel,” said Stephen Atkinson, the department’s wildlife manager.

Since 1998, territorial wildlife biologists have been counting polar bears in the M’Clintock Channel and the Gulf of Boothia.

Their recently announced estimates of 284 polar bears for M’Clintock Channel confirmed last year’s bad news that the number of bears there had taken a nose-dive.

But in the Gulf of Boothia, they found more than 1,500 polar bears — a much higher number than the previous estimate of 900 polar bears, based on studies conducted more than 20 years ago.

The news from M’Clintock Channel means a long-term moratorium on hunting in that region is the most likely option.

But whether hunters from Gjoa Haven will continue to hunt polar bears in the Gulf of Boothia isn’t certain.

This possibility will be on the table when the department of sustainable development finally starts re-negotiating its community agreements for polar bear hunts next winter.

Lower polar bear quotas are expected across the board in Nunavut. But another new zone many soon open up for sport hunters.

The Foxe Basin corners onto the M’Clintock Channel and is shared between Nunavut and Nunavik.

The two regions’ wildlife officials are already talking about making a common management agreement for Fox Basin that would meet the tough U.S. standards for sport hunting.