The polar bear may now be a symbol for why the world must curb climate change in the Arctic.
But polar bear management was a source of frustration and anger this week in Iqaluit when hunters, officials and members of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board met to consider a Government of Nunavut proposal to lower the polar bear quota for Baffin Bay.
“Inuit are very patient, but now that patience is wearing thin,” said Koalie Kooneeliusie of Qikiqtarjuaq’s Nattivak hunters and trappers association.
Kooneeliusie spoke at a special public meeting of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board held Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 in Iqaluit.
Consensus on a reduction to the polar bear quota in the Baffin Bay appeared unattainable as researchers and hunters disagreed.
Hunters threatened to completely ignore the quotas if they see any cut to their quota of 105, which is split between Pond Inlet, Qikiqtarjuaq and Clyde River.
“If the quota is cut, things will get hot,” said Jayko Allooloo from the Qikiqtani Wildlife Board.
“If it’s lower, we’ll hunt what we want,” Manasie Audlakiak of Clyde River’s Nangmautaq hunters and trappers association said, predicting a revolt among Inuit hunters if polar bear quotas are reduced.
The wildlife board called the meeting at the request of the GN, which obliged the board to move its regularily scheduled meeting from Kugluktuk to Iqaluit.
The board had to respond to a GN request made as a “ministerial management initiative” from Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk, who called the Baffin Bay harvest of 105 polar bears “a continued conservation concern” in a June 30 letter.
Referring to science, which says the number of polar bears in the Baffin Bay population fell from 2,100 to 1,500 over the past 10 years, Shewchuk said the current quota was not “sustainable” and should be changed before the start of the hunt in October.
“It is critical for effective management that we get BB back on track,” Shewchuk told Henry Flaherty, chair of the wildlife board, which can recommend measures to establish, modify or remove total allowable harvests in Nunavut.
The GN suggested three options for reductions: cutting the current quota from 105 to 64, imposing a total moratorium on the hunt until numbers recovered to 2,000, or imposing another quota based on a new population estimate.
But hunters from Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq who came to the Iqaluit meeting said right from the start that the GN has it all wrong.
They say quota cuts are unnecessary because there are more polar bears, not fewer.
And they slammed southern media who have made polar bears a symbol of climate change, to be protected at all costs.
“Those who talk about Baffin Bay bears decreasing in numbers have never been there personally, they should come to the area and experience it for themselves… Why do we Inuit have to have our economic situation interfered with?” said Jaykolasie Kiliktee of Pond Inlet’s hunters and trappers association.
“Those are our bears and we can hunt the way we want,” said Lootie Thomasie of Qikiqtarjuaq’s hunters and trappers association.
And it isn’t fair for Inuit hunters in Baffin Bay to be penalized for climate change when they don’t produce any greenhouse gases, yet another speaker said.
Many also criticized research methods that rely on computer generated models to calculate polar bear numbers.
They deplored the small role given to Inuit traditional knowledge in polar bear research, which, they said, had worked well for them over many generations.
Some speakers suggested that biologists be sent “on holiday” while Inuit hunters take over their research.
In defence of science’s numbers, GN polar bear biologist Lily Peacock responded that scientific methods are “quite old” and involve “simple adding and subtracting” with variables to make the results “more t
