Nunavut IQ on polar bears not documented

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service wants to see exactly how the Government of Nunavut collected and catalogued traditional Inuit knowledge on polar bears.

When the GN announced new polar bear quotas earlier this year, traditional knowledge justified an increase in the number of polar bears that can be hunted annually in Nunavut by 115 a year.

But the GN didn’t document the traditional knowledge they used to support this decision.

Information received through the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act says the GN did not record discussions during any of its community consultations on polar bear management.

“Specific questions and responses were not systematically recorded during the consultations,” said Jo-Anne Falkiner, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act coordinator for Nunavut, in a letter on March 31.

These consultations were intended to collect traditional knowledge from the communities. This knowledge would be incorporated into the memoranda of understanding, or MOUs, which outline management plans and quotas.

But, according to Falkiner’s letter, the final MOUs, signed between the GN and communities, are the only record of what was said during the community consultations.

“The responses were accommodated by revising the polar bear MOUs to respond to the information provided whenever possible,” Falkiner said. “The products from these consultations are the MOUs and the GN has not produced any other summary reports.”

Nunavut’s MOUs recommend a total allowable harvest of polar bears per community, which is based on the current scientific numbers for the first seven years after a population survey is done, and Inuit traditional knowledge for the following seven years.

The MOUs say all parties will meet at least once every seven years “to review and update information and set direction for the continuing management of polar bears.”

But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to see much more detailed information about the GN’s use of traditional and scientific knowledge before it is ready to accept the new polar bear quotas.

And if the GN can’t produce this information, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is likely to ban sport hunters from bringing polar bear trophies into the U.S.

A request made under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act produced a copy of a letter sent by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Canadian Wildlife Service earlier this year.

This letter states traditional knowledge can be used “to augment and improve the knowledge base used in making management decisions.”

But “the best available scientific data” must be used to decide whether quotas are sustainable.

The U.S. wants to know, among other things, exactly how the GN set final harvest levels for polar bears in Nunavut and how the GN calculated population estimates for polar bears in western Hudson Bay.

“The service is concerned that the new population estimate adopted by Nunavut for the Western Hudson Bay population has been increased from 1,200 to 1,400 bears while preliminary scientific information… indicates a declining trend in this population to approximately 1,000 bears,” Falkiner said.

As well, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it’s “concerned” that the GN increased quotas in the Northern Beaufort Sea, Viscount Melville Sound and Western Hudson Bay, increasing the hunt in these areas by 10.

And it wants to know more about how the GN decided to increase the hunt in Viscount Melville, the Western Hudson Bay and Gulf of Boothia regions, where the quota went up, overall, by 43.

The Northern Beaufort population is hunted by people of Kugluktuk, Viscount Melville by Cambridge Bay, Hudson Bay by Arviat, Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Rankin Inlet and Whale Cove, and Gulf of Boothia by Gjoa Haven, Hall Beach, Igloolik, Kugaaruk, Repulse Bay and Taloyoak.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to know how Nunavut plans to corroborate information produced by traditional knowledge about population sizes and trends, which were used to set quotas.

It also wants to see the only documented traditional knowledge study on polar bears in Nunavut, called Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Nanurnut, on the polar bear population around Gjoa Haven.

This study was prepared after the U.S. decided to ban polar bear trophies from the M’Clintock Channel region in 2001.

However, this study does not provide information to help with scientific or objective questions about population size, trends and distribution of polar bears, current, past or future. It also contains speculation as well as personal and political opinions.