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Tlicho-led Boots on the Ground program monitors caribou range

A Tlicho-led program is monitoring caribou using the traditional knowledge of Indigenous elders and harvesters.

Joe Zoe, Russell Drybones and Narcisse Rabecsa watching out over valley by Lupin mine. photo courtesy of Petter Jacobsen

The project, named Boots on the Ground, is designed to keep track of the Bathurst herd’s summer range by studying how the land, the caribou and predators are being affected by industrial disturbances.

A team of researchers, elders and harvesters spend weeks at Contwoyto (Koketi) Lake and Fry Inlet, where they travel by boat on the tenth largest lake in Nunavut.

The program is centred around “having the Tlicho people out on the land to see the caribou herds and the wolves and ecosystems with their own eyes and their type of knowledge,” said Petter Jacobsen, a researcher with the Boots on the Ground program.

“It's set up for their voice to be heard, to study and analyze their ecosystem based on traditional knowledge,” he said.

The Bathurst herd has declined from approximately 475,000 in the mid-1980s to around 16,000 animals today.

“The Tlicho chiefs wanted to have their own people out on the land to look with their own eyes,” said Jacobsen.

“Hunters, over thousands of years, figured out exactly where to meet the caribou because they always go to the same places,” he said.

The monitoring crew sets up in the fashion of a traditional hunt.

“We're six people and we're able to pack up camp quickly and be very mobile and move around according to where caribou move around,” said Jacobsen.

A bull caribou comes close to camp.

Seventy-three-year-old Joe Zoe is from Gameti and has been involved with the program for two years.

“It's good to let people know what we're doing and its good for young kids to let everybody know why are the animals very important to us,” said Zoe.

“We've grown up with the caribou hunting and right now they are shutting down all the hunting and we want to know why,” he said.

“The caribou are very important for people. Right now if you buy food from a store, like meat, you boil it or fry it and it doesn't taste good and costs too much money,” he said.

Koketi is southwest of the Bathurst caribou calving grounds, and the areas around the lake forms part of the post-calving and summer range of the Bathurst caribou.

The lake, which borders the NWT and lies in the Kitikmeot region covers 982 kilometres of shoreline, which allows the crew to cover ground quickly and dart inland when needed.

Koketi Lake is southwest of the calving grounds of the Bathurst caribou and forms part of the post-calving and summer range for the herd.

The shape of the lake drives caribou to cross it and establish annual caribou trails.

The team travels the lake and the surrounding landscape within a day’s walk from the shoreline.

The program is backed by the Tlicho Government, the GNWT’s department of environment and natural resources, the Wek’eezhii Renewable Resource Board and Dominion Diamond Mines.

The 2018 monitoring season started on July 17 and wrapped up today. The program is expected to continue well into 2021.

Two inactive mine sites — Lupin and Jericho — are in the monitoring area, alongside active mines including Ekati, Diavik and Snap Lake, which is expected to file a closure and reclamation plan in 2019.

No animals are harvested by the monitoring program because of strict regulations on the Bathurst caribou herd. Instead, team members consume fish.

The teams study water crossings, which are “crucial to understanding caribou migration,” the 2017 Boots on the Ground report states.

The Boots on the Ground team monitors the land and caribou populations as part of a Tlicho-led program. photo courtesy of Petter Jacobsen

Topography, surface materials and underwater hazards reveal clues about herd movements. The team also uses old hunter's campsites close to crossings to avoid interrupting caribou movement.

Daily, they hiked on eskers, which are long winding ridges, to watch the land from above and found archaeological evidence of previous tent sites and arrowheads.

While travelling by foot, they were careful to avoid any caribou trails for two to three days after a herd used them to avoid disrupting caribou scent on the trails, in the event other herds were following behind.

One mining camp is located directly in the path of a migratory route along the eastern shoreline of Contwoyto.

The report states that “Abandoned fuel drums and fuel containers have a high probability of contaminating soil, surface water and groundwater with hydrocarbons and heavy metals.”

Bathurst caribou have historically migrated from calving grounds near the Arctic Ocean south to the treeline where they stay during the winter months.

In recent years, the report states, the herd has stayed largely above the treeline and barren lands during both summer and winter.

“The presence of caribou on the barren land, and specifically on the post-calving range throughout the year provides a secure and steady supply of available meat for the wolves in the area, like never before,” the report states.

Mining infrastructure between lakes and migratory routes force caribou into more difficult terrain, exposing them to predators like wolves, which use the infrastructure to their advantage.

“We've also seen some of the mining infrastructure in the area and how it alters the migration routes.

The barren lands are full of lakes and the Tlicho had this word call tataa – which means land crossing. This is a central constant of understanding caribou migration. When mining infrastructure and roads are put on the tataa or between the lake, caribou are forced to move in different ways if they have to cross mining infrastructure,” said Jacobsen.

The Boots on the Ground team members saw caribou being predated by wolves while crossing mining infrastructure, said Jacobsen.

“The caribou are more vulnerable and are easier to prey on. Caribou can't walk through boulder fields or big hills and they have to avoid water bodies. If you put roads or mining infrastructure, they need to stop or go in a single line through these areas,” he said.

Near the Jericho mine site, caribou attempted to cross at the narrowest point, where they were targeted by a wolf.

After three attempts to pass the mine through the valley, the herd stopped its southern migration “to avoid further wolf attacks,” the report said.

The team identified signs of climate change, including the early spring melt and new species appearing on the calving range.

Of the 40 days spent on the land in 2017, they spotted 13,224 caribou, six grizzlies, 18 wolves and four bald eagles.

Bald eagles, scooter and mallard ducks, ladybugs, grasshoppers and red squirrels were all recorded as news species to the area, states the report.

The team also observed higher spring temperatures and an absence of snow cover in early July, where snow patches covered crevasses or shaded slopes in previous years.

Overall, the herds are healthy with a high calve to cow ratio, said Jacobsen.

“It was positive to see a normal calve population. When there's a decline of a whole population you would expect less calves but what you see is more calves,” he said.

Boots on the Ground uses the information it gathers to influence management of the Bathurst caribou range, said Jacobsen.

“It's their own people so if you have respected hunters and elders out there watching then its a legitimate source of information for the community,” he said.

“We're describing the story of what's happening,” said Jacobsen.

Caribou meat has been central to Tlicho peoples diets and some people are frustrated with the ban, said Zoe.

“Maybe some day the caribou will change,” said Zoe.

“Petter asked me, 'Are you happy to see the caribou one more time?' Before we carried on back home, we saw three caribou. I told the caribou, 'Goodbye and I will see you again. Good luck wherever you walk,” said Zoe.