Caribou shortage hits northern restaurants

Caribou dishes are hard to come by in Yellowknife and Iqaluit restaurants due to what biologists say is a decline in northern Barren Lands caribou populations.

The main supplier of caribou to northern restaurants, Kivalliq Foods in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, has run out of the northern meat in recent months. That has trickled down to establishments that have served caribou to locals and tourists craving a true taste of Canada's North.

"It's very limited," chef Pierre Lepage told CBC News.

Lepage, who runs the Wildcat Cafe, Le Frolic Bistro Bar and several other Yellowknife eateries, said his last order of caribou came in several months ago, with one case costing about $400.

"It's extremely expensive," he said. "I can probably fly in African antelope for the same prices."

Supplies running out

Yellowknife restaurant supplier Jack McLean of Arctic Foods told CBC News that he orders his caribou meat from Kivalliq Foods, and has not been able to get any caribou meat for the past six months at least.

Elsewhere in Yellowknife, chef Kavan Paradis of Fuego restaurant and Twist Resto-Lounge said he ran out of caribou last month.

"The shame of all that is the fact that we have [tourists] that would like to have a nice steak or medallion of caribou," Paradis said.

In Iqaluit, the Gallery restaurant in the Frobisher Inn has also run out of caribou meat, so it cannot offer its popular caribou medallions. Restaurant staff say they don't know when they can bring the dish back.

Two other Iqaluit establishments, the Water's Edge restaurant and Kicking Caribou pub, have had to order caribou from a supplier in southern Canada.

"When it's a fact that you couldn't get it because there wasn't any there, that's disturbing, yeah," Water's Edge co-owner Donna Waters said. "It's worrying."

Caribou numbers 'way down'

Nunavut's Environment Department blames the caribou meat shortage on a decline in caribou populations in the territory.

"The numbers of caribou are way down," said Steve Pinksen, the department's director of policy, planning and legislation.

"Much of the mainland herds, and the ones that overlap with the N.W.T. — there's the Bluenose East and West herds, the Bathurst herds — they all seem to be showing a decline," Pinksen added.

The department is planning its first extensive caribou survey across Baffin Island next year.

But previous population surveys have not shown promising numbers: a preliminary survey of the Qamanirjuaq caribou herd in 2008 counted 345,000 caribou cows, down from 496,000 in 1994.

Herds not shrinking: hunter

A reconnaissance survey by the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board, also in 2008, spotted 93 breeding cows from those herds, compared with more than 5,700 breeding cows 14 years ago.

But aboriginal hunters say caribou numbers are not declining as much as biologists believe. Rather, they say, the herds are moving to different locations.

"I don't think the population's gone down, but it's just that they've gone elsewhere to feed," said David Veevee, a veteran hunter in Nunavut. "This winter, the caribou [were] kind of hard to reach, so we went extreme north."

Veevee added that caribou herds tend to go through breeding cycles, so it will take some time before the numbers come back up again.

Bathurst herd hunting ban in place

Last year, Northwest Territories government biologists estimated the Bathurst caribou herd's population at 31,900 animals, compared with 128,000 in 2006. As a result, the territorial government imposed an emergency ban on hunting caribou from that herd this year.

However, N.W.T. restaurateurs say the emergency ban has not affected their business because they order from the Rankin Inlet facility, which is a federally approved meat plant.

Back in Yellowknife, Lepage said he still has some caribou meat left, but it will only be a matter of time before he runs out of it.

"We would just try to suggest buffalo," he said. "It's not really from here — it's from Alberta — but it's a truly Canadian meat."