N.W.T. seeks independent review of caribou counts
The Northwest Territories government is bringing in outside experts to help settle a year-long debate over caribou numbers in the territory.
Environment Minister Michael Miltenberger said he is hiring biologists from outside the territory to conduct an independent review of how government biologists counted caribou in the N.W.T.
"The only information which is held by the government is being questioned," Miltenberger told CBC News on Tuesday.
"Let's get a peer review that looks at this, that has no vested interest, that will hopefully give us the validation we need to confirm that we're on the right track."
The government's most recent counts, released in September 2006, showed caribou populations sharply declining for the second year in a row. The Bathurst herd, the largest in the territory, dropped 74 per cent in the past 20 years, according to the government numbers, from 472,000 in 1986 to 128,000 in 2006.
The declining numbers prompted then-environment minister Michael McLeod to slash the number of caribou hunting tags allocated to outfitting companies by half in January 2007, putting him at loggerheads with outfitters who questioned the science behind the government's caribou counts. The outfitters said having fewer hunting tags would kill their industry.
Miltenberger said the independent review, which he hopes will be completed within a few months, will look at how the government came up with its most recent caribou herd numbers.
"We're talking science, we're talking numbers, we're talking the largest herd of free-roaming mammals probably in North America, a species that's vitally important to all of us. So we want to do the right things," he said.
"This is not just a tug-of-war between two parties. This is trying to do the right thing in an area where there is no baseline information other than what we've invested in gathering."
In March, several outfitters launched a lawsuit against the government over the reduction in caribou tags. The outfitters have since dropped the suit.
Outfitter Gary Jaeb said he hopes the review will also reveal how the territorial government defined the N.W.T.'s six main caribou herds, and how it decided how many caribou can be harvested.
Both sides say they'll accept review findings
"We can agree that the methodology of counting the herds is acceptable, but someone determines what the sustainable harvest is and if it's 18 per cent in Quebec and four per cent in the Northwest Territories, why the difference?" Jaeb said.
Boyd Warner, president of the Barren Ground Caribou Outfitters Association, said the government's own website indicates there is a healthy number of animals in the North.
"If there's that much uncertainty, possibly 200,000 more caribou out there, why are we cutting hunting licences and outfitter tags and [putting] restrictions on people if there's still that many caribou?" he said.
"If they don't know, we don't feel they should be cutting until they do know the facts."
Both Miltenberger and the outfitters said they will accept the findings of the review, whatever they may be.