Sled Dog Watchdog: Yukon News John Thompson 'Porcupine caribou slaughter' article

'Orchestrated slaughter threatens Porcupine caribou'
John Thompson, Yukon News - September 5th, 2008

The scenery of the Dempster Highway is known for inspiring awe, not nausea. But what two Yukon men
witnessed on the road this week made them feel ill.

They saw as many as eight trucks of hunters from the Northwest Territories using high-frequency radios,
all-terrain vehicles and other high-tech gear to shoot members of the fragile Porcupine caribou herd near
the highway between Eagle Plains and the NWT border. The witnesses describe the operation as an
industrial-style slaughter. They drove the road to see caribou and they found nothing but carcasses.

"I was just really disgusted," said one man. "I don't think it's right. If this continues year after year, we
won't have any caribou left. I was almost in tears. You know when something is wrong, when it is not
right?"

Both men requested anonymity, citing fear for their personal safety.

"The last thing I need is somebody to smash or threaten me or something," one said.

News of such hunting practices was condemned by Joe Linklater, chief of Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. His
constituents in Old Crow depend on the caribou for food. He says hunting caribou by ATV near the
Dempster is "ridiculous." "That's just not respectful for the herd, or the people who depend on it for food."
What's more, the current health of the herd is unclear, says Linklater.

For several years, aerial counts of the Porcupine herd have been thwarted by bad weather. The last count,
in 2001, found 123,000 caribou. But researchers believe the actual number now sits at around 115,000.
That's a significant decline from 1989, when 178,000 caribou were seen.

Until more is known about the herd's health, Old Crow residents have volunteered to limit the number of
caribou they take to "bare minimum" for subsistence, Linklater said.

Meanwhile, Linklater worries "these guys are just making the situation worse."

But, the hunters on the Dempster are playing by the rules, according to present laws.

Tetlit Gwitch'in of the Northwest Territories are entitled to hunt along the Dempster, thanks to a land
claim deal struck in July 1991. Land-claim rights trump territorial hunting regulations. That's why a
no-hunting corridor, extending 500 metres from the Dempster, was abandoned by the Yukon government
last autumn.

So, when conservation officers watched NWT natives hunt on the Dempster this week, there were few
rules to uphold. There is no limit on how many caribou aboriginal hunters can shoot. Nor are there rules
restricting the use of ATVs or any other technology.

"Sometimes it looks a bit ugly up there, but there's not much we can do, other than just ensure that's
nothing's wasted," said Torrie Hunter, who manages the conservation officers who monitor northern
Yukon. There are not many caribou presently near the Dempster, said Hunter. Most migrate across the
highway in October.

But, the two concerned men who reported the carnage are worried what they saw was simply a warm-up
for a bigger slaughter to come.

Conservation officers will be watching the highway during the migration, said Hunter. But "we're fairly
limited by what we can do, enforcement-wise."

His location doesn't help. He's based in Dawson City. "It's 400 kilometres north of here, so it's not like I
can jump in a truck and go up there for an afternoon. It's remote. And there are only two officers here."

A management plan that may set rules on native hunting of the Porcupine herd is currently being
developed by the Porcupine Caribou Management Board. But, as it stands the board can only urge that
hunters restrain themselves by only taking bulls, and by taking fewer animals than usual.

One of the witnesses said he believed that he saw cows being shot.

A report issued by the board in July warns that "harvesting like normal could make the population of the
herd go down further and faster so that it would take many, many years to recover."

Gwitch'in from both the Yukon and NWT are involved in the creation of the management plan. It's not
clear in which community the NWT hunters live. The concerned men suspected Fort McPherson - the
community closest to the Yukon border. But, in Fort McPherson, Chief Wilbert Firth said the hunters he
represents abide by their own voluntary restrictions. No hunting of caribou by ATV is permitted, he said,
and hunters may only take one caribou per family. He said he suspected the hunters came from farther
away.

There are two other NWT communities connected to the Dempster: Tsiigehtchic and Inuvik. Regardless of
where the hunters came from, Linklater says that he believes the NWT and Yukon governments should do
more to restrict hunting.

"We have to reconsider the 500-metre corridor along the Dempster Highway, and try to find some way to
instill proper hunting practices for that herd," said Linklater. The Dempster corridor is still on the books,
he said.

"The Yukon government isn't enforcing that law right now, but they could."

"The Yukon government can impose a ban on hunting if they have a conservation concern," he added.
Reviving the Dempster no-hunt corridor may not do much good, the two concerned men say. The hunt
they saw was beyond that limit - but so well coordinated, one worries that few caribou can escape.

"It's like dragging the ocean bottom," he said. Whether the hunt is legal or not is beside the point, the
man said.

"It is evil," he said. "It is immoral. It is not about legality."

"When legality is about wiping out your herd, what do you do?"

'Elias blames YTG for caribou slaughter'
John Thompson, Yukon News - September 12, 2008

Darius Elias, MLA for Vuntut Gwitchin, says reports of a high-tech slaughter of Porcupine caribou near the
Dempster Highway come to him as no surprise.

"Make no mistake, this is not an isolated incident," he said. "It's happened before. I've seen it with my own
eyes, and so have many other Yukoners."

Last week two Yukon men reported that, while driving the highway near the Northwest Territories border,
they came across a string of six to eight pickups, driven by hunters who used high-frequency radios,
all-terrain vehicles and high-powered rifles to shoot the few caribou in sight.

The firestorm that followed has revealed rifts among aboriginal leaders, pitting those in the Yukon against
those in the Northwest Territories.

And it has led to an unlikely scenario, in which Gwitch'in leaders are blaming the Yukon government for
not imposing restrictions upon their cherished right to hunt.

Elias, a Liberal, wasted no time in blaming the caribou slaughter on the Yukon Party government. Elaine
Taylor, the Environment minister, "must do something before it's too late," said Elias.

The Yukon government erred when it decided to drop a 500-metre no-hunting corridor surrounding the
Dempster, he said.

That regulation was dropped last autumn after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled, in another case, that
the aboriginal right to hunt trumps provincial and territorial hunting rules. The no-hunting corridor is still
on the books, but it is no longer enforced.

Also no longer enforced is a regulation that allowed the leaders of the migrating Porcupine herd to pass
the highway without being shot.

"They've caved into some pressures," Elias said of the Yukon government, "and that's wrong."

Taylor said the Yukon government will not create new hunting rules without first consulting other levels of
government and aboriginal groups that form the Porcupine Caribou Management Board. Any new hunting
rules would come from a management plan being worked on by the board, she said. A draft plan is to be
completed later this autumn.

In the meantime, more conservation officers have been sent to monitor hunting on the Dempster, she
added. Even if the corridor were still being enforced, conservation officers say that caribou shot last week
near the highway were beyond the corridor limits.

That doesn't matter, Elias said. He's heard of other instances, he said, where caribou had been shot in a
reckless fashion within the corridor boundaries. He has also heard of hunters driving pickups off the
highway in pursuit of caribou, he said.

"People phone me and say, Darius, I was walking, packing a caribou back, and a pick-up truck drove right
out beside me."

Conservation officers, who observed last week's highway hunt, said they saw no rules being broken. But
there are currently few rules for them to enforce, other than ensuring that no meat is wasted.

Meanwhile, the two men who witnessed last week's hunt fear what they saw is only the beginning of a
bigger slaughter to come. They say the trucks involved bore Northwest Territories license plates.

Similarly, Elias said other reports he has heard typically involve "people with polar bear plates on the back
of their truck."

This, understandably, has not sat well with Gwitch'in leaders in the NWT, who insist their hunters would
not condone such practices as chasing caribou by ATV. Others in the NWT have responded by asking how
highway hunting differs from the practice of Old Crow residents shooting caribou by boat as the herd
crosses the Porcupine River.

To this, Elias replied that the hunting practices of Old Crow residents are "ancient." "It's not an ancient
cultural practice, driving out there on the tundra, and filling up your truck with gutted, cut-in-half
caribou."

Reckless hunters are a minority, Elias said, but it may not take many to put the herd in peril. The current
health of the Porcupine herd is uncertain. Aerial counts of the herd have been thwarted by bad weather
since 2001, when the population was estimated to be 123,000.

Researchers say the actual number now sits at around 115,000. That's a significant decline from in 1989,
when 178,000 caribou were seen.

If hunting continues as usual, with about 4,000 caribou shot annually, the herd will continue to dwindle to
only 20,000 animals in 15 years, according to the Porcupine Caribou Management Board. This steep
decline could be lessened if hunting was halved, to only 2,000 caribou taken annually, although the herd
would still shrink.

To stabilize the herd, not only do hunters need to take less caribou, they need to avoid shooting cows.
Each young cow that is killed is equal to 23 fewer caribou being available in the next 10 years, due to the
number of offspring, and offspring of offspring, the cow would have produced.

The two Yukon men who saw the highway hunt said they believed they saw cows being shot.

Other than indiscriminate hunting, there are two other wildcards that may affect the survival of the
Porcupine herd, Elias said.

The first is climate change.

The second is proposed oil drilling in the Porcupine herd's calving grounds in Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Reserve.

This week Elias visited Washington, DC, to lobby against drilling in ANWR. He received a warm reception,
he said.

The fact that both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates alike have positions against drilling
in the ANWR is, Elias said, "testament to 20 years of sacrifice and hard work of Gwitch'in and Yukoners"
who have campaigned to protect the Porcupine herd.