Tlicho elders, hunters return from 2nd year of on-the-land Bathurst caribou monitoring

Tlicho hunters and elders have returned from six weeks of observing caribou at Contwoyto Lake, Nunavut, in the second year of a program designed to use traditional knowledge to monitor the diminishing barrenland population.

• Bathurst caribou herd could be down to 16,000 animals, says gov't

• ​​'We use our eyes, our mouth and our hearing': Tlicho elders to monitor Bathurst caribou

The project — a collaboration between the Tlicho Government, Government of the Northwest Territories, Wek'eezhi Renewable Resource Board, and Dominion Diamond Corporation — had teams camp and travel by foot and on boat, following caribou herds and documenting their observations.

This year, the group spotted about 8,500 caribou over six weeks, said Petter Jacobsen, the Tlicho Government's traditional knowledge researcher.

"They seemed to be in fairly good shape," he said. "Their health is as it should be, as the elders were stating. We saw the calf population is normal, so those are positive signs."

Joe Zoe was one of the elders who took part in the project. Zoe has been monitoring caribou for years, but this was his first time monitoring the herds near Contwoyto Lake. 

There is a personal connection to the area for Zoe, who went out hunting there with his father.

"The way my dad tells me stories, there was caribou," he said. "If there's not much, they wait out there to meet the other herd."

'They look good, they look healthy'

The project, named Boots on the Ground, is funded by Dominion Diamond Corporation and the territorial government.

Two teams, each including an elder, younger hunters, and traditional knowledge researchers, each spent three weeks on the land following the herd. The teams were also assisted by an Inuit family who live on Contwoyto Lake. 

"They look good, they look healthy," Zoe said of the herd. "Some of them have a sore leg or something like that. But mostly, they look healthy."

Zoe said one thing that stood out to him was the weather — over the years, he says, the area appears to have warmed.

"The time's changing," he said. "The people used to tell us that the snow used to be out there on the land all summer long. This time, the snow was gone really quickly."

Jacobsen said that compared to last year, the group saw more activity from predators, particularly wolves, who he says used mining installations to help hunt the herd.

"We did see how some of the mining infrastructure on the barrenlands, in some ways deter the caribou from their normal migration routes," he said. "At the same time, predation is pretty high, and they kind of use that mining infrastructure to their benefit to hunt caribou."

Zoe said he saw the wolves in action near the Jericho Mine, which closed in 2010.

"We saw a lot of caribou there, down in the valley," he said. "It was a thousand caribou it looked like. A big herd.

"The wolves were out there waiting for them. Maybe four or five wolves. They were chasing caribou ... the wolves were killing lots of caribou out there."

Following their time on the land, the observation teams prepare a report of their observations of the wildlife and land. Those observations are then shared with the territorial government. 

• Read the 2016 report (PDF)

The project is funded through next year.