| CARIBOU NEWS IN BRIEF |
Volume 12 No.1 · Summer 2008 | ||
In this issue ...
FLAWLESSLY FEW CARIBOU ON BEVERLY CALVING GROUND AGAIN HOW MANY CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ARE TOO MANY? SLOW GOING FOR UPPER THELON PLANNING
QAMANIRJUAQ SURVEY GOES OFF FLAWLESSLY
With the weather gods smiling on them, a team of experts from Nunavut, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories (NWT) successfully carried out a calving ground survey of the Qamanirjuaq herd during the first two weeks of June – the first census of that herd since 1994, when its numbers were estimated at around 496,000. “Everything just worked like clockwork,” Nunavut Department of Environment wildlife manager and BQCMB member Dan Shewchuk later summed up. The survey team, headed by Kivalliq regional biologist Mitch Campbell, was equipped with two fixed-wing aircraft, a helicopter and a photo plane with a built-in camera that continuously photographed caribou on the calving ground as the plane swept up one transect and down another. Photos and data gathered during the survey are being analyzed now to estimate the Qamanirjuaq herd’s population, based on the approximate number of pregnant cows on the calving ground. The roughly $322,000 cost of the survey was shouldered by the governments of Nunavut and Manitoba, with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) being a major contributor. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) also chipped in funds. Primed in advance with good info Several developments months earlier helped arm the survey team with quality information heading into the expensive survey. In March 2008, 20 more satellite collars were deployed, bringing the current total number of Qamanirjuaq cows collared to 32. Higher numbers of collared cows means more location data and better clues to the timing of the herd’s spring migration. In May 2008, spring classification work pointed to a drop in calf recruitment, similar to the outcome of the May 2007 classification survey. In June 2008, as soon as satellite collaring location data showed most collared cows as having reached the Qamanirjuaq calving ground, a reconnaissance survey was flown to confirm that caribou were on the calving ground. By about the end of the first week of June, the survey team started the actual population survey, working “very, very long, long days” to take advantage of perfect weather conditions, Shewchuk said.
Review for uranium project? “The potential for impacts to wildlife habitat, particularly core caribou calving grounds, and Inuit harvesting activities as a result of the proposed exploration activities for the Garry Lake Project and the cumulative effects of similar existing projects have been raised with increasing concern by organizations such as the BQCMB and the GN-DoE (Department of Environment),” said NIRB acting chairperson Lucassie Arragutainaq in the June 27, 2008 decision. Like the BQCMB, the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and the Athabasca Denesuline Negotiation Team had urged NIRB to recommend that the Uravan proposal – and all other exploration proposals on the calving ground – be dismissed. These three parties also recommended implementing the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary Management Plan. That includes establishing boundaries and regulations for the special management areas called for in the Plan, and conducting regional assessments of cumulative impacts of mineral exploration on caribou. As of April 10, 2008, Uravan held more than half of all mineral tenures on the Beverly traditional calving ground, with 278 mineral claims (most were acquired in 2006 and 2007). Dollars and sense
School caribou hunts
BQCMB meetings FEW CARIBOU ON BEVERLY CALVING GROUND AGAIN For the second year in a row, a NWT-led survey team found very few caribou on the Beverly calving ground in June. The animals were also scattered over a larger area. This meant the team could only outline, or “delineate,” the calving ground instead of doing a visual stratification survey to estimate herd size. In June 2007, an attempted calving ground survey of the Beverly herd was largely grounded by stormy weather. When team members were able to fly, sometimes not a single caribou per square kilometre was sighted (usually 30 to 40 caribou per square kilometre are seen). As a result, the Beverly population is thought to have declined. “It looked like we were having late movement of animals on to the calving ground,” added Deb Johnson, the former South Slave regional biologist and BQCMB member who headed the work. She wasn’t convinced that a late spring in NWT was to blame, and suspected low pregnancy rates were more likely the culprit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) is still deciding what its next steps will be in determining the size of the Beverly herd, Johnson added. During five days of flying, the survey team’s community observers – John Nukik of Baker Lake in one plane, and BQCMB member Dennis Larocque of Camsell Portage and alternate member Pierre Robillard of Black Lake in another plane – flew over migration routes to the Beverly calving ground to make sure that animals weren’t calving elsewhere. ENR has beefed up its monitoring of the Beverly herd this past year. A spring composition survey of Beverly and Ahiak animals discovered that the herds have a recruitment rate of 48 calves per 100 cows. ENR also placed satellite collars on 30 more Beverly cows during the first week of April in order to better track the herd. The collaring team targeted animals associated with the same group of caribou collared during the July 2007 post-calving season. These animals would all likely be moving in similar patterns, Johnson said, and there would be more chance of them returning to the Beverly calving ground. HOW MANY CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ARE TOO MANY?
Many things are happening on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq ranges that could threaten the caribou. There is extensive mineral exploration and development, new roads are being built, greater numbers of people are hunting caribou, and more. Barren-ground caribou travel far and wide, so they’re exposed to many factors that could cause stress and affect the herds’ survival and productivity. Then there are natural factors that cause stress like disease, predators, forest fire and extreme weather – factors caribou have dealt with for thousands of years. Today’s caribou also have to battle the effects of climate change and unprecedented levels of human activity across their ranges. What results are “cumulative effects,” also known as “cumulative impacts.” They are the combined environmental effects from similar activities that add up over time and space, and they could threaten caribou and the people who depend on caribou. The stress and disturbance from each land use activity might seem small, but together, these effects can be damaging. They may influence the health of caribou and their ability to cope with natural factors that cause stress. The attempted population survey of Beverly caribou in 2007 discovered relatively few caribou on the calving ground compared to surveys done in the 1980s and ‘90s, indicating the herd’s numbers may have dropped. Population declines have been documented in five other NWT herds (the Bathurst, the Cape Bathurst, the Bluenose East, the Bluenose West, and the Porcupine herds). Human effects on caribou will continue to pile up over time. It’s important to make sure they don’t harm caribou and threaten their future. A snapshot of change A glance across the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou ranges reveals different forces of change. “Our biggest impact would be the forest fires,” says BQCMB member Dennis Larocque of Camsell Portage, who found that fires were edging closer to communities. “It’s so dry and (there’s) so much lightning.” According to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment’s website, the province had endured 567 forest fires this year by August 18. BQCMB member Albert Thorassie of Tadoule Lake suspects global warming may be behind unusual weather patterns in northern Manitoba. By June now, the land is dry and free of snow. Yet some caribou still linger, Thorassie notes. “Usually they travel (when) the ice is still there.” Mineral exploration and development accounts for most human activity on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq ranges today, and BQCMB members Dan Shewchuk, with Nunavut’s Department of Environment, and Tim Trottier, of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, are seeing plenty of exploration in their regions.“There’s more people on the land” carrying out drilling, expediting and more, Trottier notes. And exploration appears to have intensified close to northern Saskatchewan’s existing mines. In Nunavut, Baker Lake has become a hub for mineral exploration in recent years, mainly for uranium. But BQCMB member Thomas Elytook of Baker Lake, who has started doing wildlife monitoring for Cameco Corporation and Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., says that the caribou he has seen continue to eat as the monitoring team passes by, either during helicopter flights to drill sites or driving along the new Meadowbank Gold Mine road. However, Elytook, who hunts year-round, says caribou “seem to be not as fat as when I was growing up. It seems like they’re getting thinner and thinner.” It’s a gradual change, Elytook emphasizes, and some years, caribou are fat if the previous autumn has been a rainy one. Outfitter and wildlife biologist Alex Hall of Canoe Arctic in Fort Smith, who sat in on the BQCMB’s May meeting, says air traffic from mining activities has long disrupted his NWT business’s canoe treks on the remote and sparsely populated barrens. As soon as pilots see another human,“(t)hey dive-bomb and harass us and have been for decades,” Hall told Caribou News in Brief . “I’m sure they do the same for every animal they see.” Hall, an outfitter with almost 40 years' experience, says pilots have even landed in his campsite looking for women—or rather, “starved for the sight of a woman after months of having seen none.” “It’s annoying enough because there’s all kinds of noise activity in the form of fixed wings and helicopters and drilling, and then to have these guys start buzzing your campsite or even landing in your campsite, it’s extremely annoying. It’s affected where I do my business, especially around the Thelon.” Dangers of cumulative effectsFor years, the BQCMB has recommended to governments and regulatory agencies that more data be gathered about the combined effects of human land use activities occurring on the caribou ranges. In presentations to workshops and conferences, and in submissions to regulatory agencies on land use applications over the past several years, the BQCMB has repeatedly urged that regulatory and other territorial and federal government agencies assess cumulative effects with respect to caribou, examining impacts on a regional scale instead of only looking at smaller individual project areas. That’s not enough to prevent significant negative impacts on caribou. Here are a few factors an assessment should consider:
Dealing with combined impacts During a special session at the BQCMB’s May 2008 meeting in Fort Smith, Board members learned about projects in NWT and Nunavut that will determine how to monitor and assess cumulative effects. The session was intended to encourage discussion among Board members and identify how the BQCMB could promote monitoring and assessment of the cumulative effects of human land use activities on caribou, and support existing programs addressing this key issue. Managing cumulative effects is the purpose of the multi-organizational NWT Environmental Stewardship Framework (ESF), created by INAC and Environment Canada. It was formed after the environmental assessment for the Diavik diamond mine. Rising development meant northerners had to confront potential cumulative effects, rather than wait for problems before responding. But no single organization has a mandate for cumulative effects. While the NWT ESF has made some gains, such as regional plans of action driven by regional Aboriginal organizations’ needs, INAC environmental scientist Meredith Seabrook told BQCMB members that the NWT ESF also faces challenges: a lack of commitment by many organizations, a lack of accountability, leading to little or no progress, capacity issues and insufficient funding. The NWT Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program (CIMP) feeds into the NWT ESF Identifying and monitoring the cumulative impacts of land and water uses, using traditional knowledge and science, are among this INAC initiative’s key goals. To date, it has funded more than 100 community-based projects. Like NWT ESF, it faces stiff challenges, including a lack of long-term funding and high member turnover. NWT CIMP monitors what it terms “priority valued components” – things important to communities, such as water and sediment quality, vegetation and animals like caribou. The committee dedicated to caribou, led by NWT Environment and Natural Resources biologist Jan Adamczewski, is spearheading a Caribou-Cumulative Effects Modelling Project that will eventually be crafted to suit all barren-ground caribou herds, including the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq. For now, the Bathurst caribou summer range, home to Canada’s diamond mines, has been picked for a demo project to model the cumulative effects of several NWT mines on Bathurst caribou. The project will run over the next eight months and use Tli Cho traditional knowledge of caribou. The committee is partnering with the Wek’ èezhìi Renewable Resources Board, and Allice Legat of that board will co-ordinate the project’s traditional knowledge aspects. The committee will enter existing and new data into two computer models, one map-based and one centred around caribou nutrition and demographics. These models will work together and channel information to ALCES, a computer simulation model that tracks different variables and industries across the same large landbase, as well as environmental variables and how these components affect each other. Through ALCES, people can start to consider different futures, to a degree.
“ALCES allows you to sit down with people and ask them, where do you want to be in 50 years?” Adamczewski says. “How many jobs do you want in this area and how important are the caribou going to be to you?” “It allows people to make these choices and tradeoffs.” Another NWT-based initiative still in the design stage is the Thelon Cumulative Effects Study, a response to concerns expressed by Akaitcho members and organizations about the cumulative effects of mineral exploration and mining in the uranium-rich Thelon watershed. Led by INAC with the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and other partners, the study will use existing information, pinpoint gaps “and try to fill those gaps,” says INAC manager of environment and conservation Teresa Joudrie. Information gleaned through the Upper Thelon Land and Resource Management Plan on the Beverly herd’s grazing, calving and migration patterns will aid the cumulative effects study. In Nunavut, cumulative effects management is just getting underway. The Nunavut Planning Commission is creating a Cumulative Impacts Management Framework for Nunavut that will be enacted in the still-to-be-developed Nunavut Land Use Plan. It will serve as a basis for NPC cumulative impact referrals to NIRB. Guidelines on caribou impacts Mining companies and other businesses operating in NWT and Nunavut (where baseline data is scarce) would benefit from caribou impact assessment guidelines that told them what information to file as part of their environmental impact statements. University of Calgary student Steve Lines hopes to fill that gap when he tables his Master’s thesis on Caribou Impact Assessment and Monitoring Guidelines later this year. The environmental impact assessment student previously spent two years working for the Nunavut Water Board and NIRB. When mining companies monitored their own projects, Lines noticed they sometimes couldn’t tell if their mining activities affected caribou. That’s because they didn’t have baseline data about the herds as a starting point. “A lot of that information under normal circumstances would be coming from government’s monitoring programs at the herd level,” says Lines. But in Nunavut, that information hasn’t been collected. “It puts the mining company in a tricky spot.” Lines says he’s focusing on caribou because they are the species that comes up most often in regulatory reviews. His guidelines for environmental impact statements will be based on literature that shows proven impacts on caribou, be they industrial or natural influences like snow depths, insect harassment and predation. They’ll also zero in on the most relevant information so that mining companies can do environmental impact statements more efficiently. Once completed, Lines will submit his guidelines to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB), NIRB, and the governments of NWT and Nunavut so that all will hopefully use the same guidelines – a first for the North.
SLOW GOING FOR UPPER THELON PLANNING Conflicting schedules and taxing workloads among potential partners forced INAC to revise its ambitious March 2008 deadline to carry out short-term goals envisioned for an Upper Thelon Land and Resource Management Plan in the NWT. But Teresa Joudrie, manager of environment and conservation for INAC–NWT Region, says the March 2010 deadline for long-term goals still stands (no new deadline has been set yet for short-term goals). INAC intends to create a land and resource management plan with Aboriginal groups, governments, industry representatives, resource management boards and non-government organizations. By the end of June, INAC had corresponded with several interested parties, and held initial discussions with the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Dene First Nation (including several Athabasca chiefs). Joudrie said the BQCMB would be asked to assist with environmental studies focusing on caribou. The Upper Thelon region contains key Beverly and Ahiak caribou habitat, including primary migration routes for both herds, and is a cultural sanctuary for the Akaitcho Dene. The area is also highly desired by mining companies for its uranium.
Unfortunately, mineral exploration proposals for the Upper Thelon region continue through the regulatory process. Four proposed uranium exploration projects have been undergoing environmental assessments since the summer of 2007: Bayswater Uranium Corporation’s Crab Lake and El Lake projects, and Uravan Minerals Incorporated’s South Boomerang Lake and North Boomerang Lake projects. In a November 2007 letter to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board, the BQCMB urged that the environmental assessments “not be conducted until adequate progress is made on sorting out the broader issues of land and resource management in the upper Thelon basin.” Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary Management Plan: While the Government of Nunavut, the Kivalliq Inuit Association, the NWMB, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) and the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation have endorsed the plan for approval, the NWT government has yet to agree to it. Its Cabinet was expected to make a decision by the end of summer. One of the plan’s two special management areas proposed outside the Sanctuary’s boundaries would more fully protect the portion of the Beverly calving ground north of the Sanctuary. Nunavut Land Use Plan: Reports are being produced to help the NPC develop a territory-wide land use plan with regional components. One goal was to compile existing knowledge of wildlife resource and habitat values, plus land use planning considerations. The BQCMB provided info on caribou and habitat. Data collected for all reports will be reviewed at Kivalliq community meetings mid-October, says NPC director of policy Adrian Boyd. Then NPC will discuss a land use planning process with NTI and the Canadian and Nunavut governments. Nunavut Caribou Management Strategy: Consultations on a draft Nunavut Caribou Management Strategy are to take place this fall with Nunavut communities and other jurisdictions. Nunavut Department of Environment wildlife manager Dan Shewchuk says that the BQCMB will also be asked to provide input. This strategy will be critical to the way that the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds are managed and monitored in Nunavut. Athabasca Land Use Plan: Stage I Draft Land Use Plan, comments from interested parties have been incorporated and a revised plan reviewed by the Saskatchewan government, Prince Albert Grand Council, area communities and leaders. Comments included the BQCMB’s extensive input from 2006. As well, seven First Nations and communities created an Athabasca Land Use Vision (www.pagc.sk.ca/alup), outlining what they want to see in a land use plan. The Stage I plan is back with communities for review, says Todd Olexson, landscape planning manager for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.
The BQCMB has bid farewell to several much-appreciated Board members. August Enzoe of Lutselk’e represented the Dene communities of NWT’s South Slave region since 1999, “and was a quiet but strong advocate for caribou conservation over the years,” says BQCMB biologist Leslie Wakelyn. Enzoe shared his knowledge of caribou and the land during many Board meetings. Appointed as Enzoe’s replacement is Archie Catholique, also of Lutselk’e. The Board welcomes him. Deb Johnson, the South Slave regional biologist for NWT ENR, left the territory to attend veterinary school in Saskatchewan. Since joining the Board in 2002, Johnson contributed enormously to BQCMB projects. “She brought a quiet, assertive and hard-working presence from the GNWT and scientific community to the Board,” says BQCMB secretary-treasurer Ross Thompson. “Deb was open to new ideas and techniques, and always followed up on tasks on behalf of the Board and communities.” Meanwhile, INAC–Nunavut Region director of operations Carl McLean has taken a position with the Nunatsiavut government in Goose Bay, Labrador. McLean became a BQCMB member in 2006, and was an active alternate member prior to that. He delivered valuable experience and was key in securing additional INAC funding for Board projects. “Carl always came through from one pot or the other,” Thompson remarked. “Carl was truly a strong ally and advocate for the Board on the federal and, often, industry scenes, bringing open and accurate information from his department, yet clearly pointing out what the Board needed to do to make its cases stronger for habitat and caribou protection.” Board replacements have yet to be appointed for Johnson and McLean. A stream of presenters and visitors made the Board’s information-packed May meeting in Fort Smith a lively one. On hand were Willie Joe Laurent of Fond du Lac, BQCMB alternate member Pierre Robillard of Black Lake, former BQCMB chairman Jim Schaeffer of Fort Smith, Phillip Josie of Wollaston Lake’s Hatchet Lake Band, NWT ungulate biologist Jan Adamczewski, University of Calgary student Steve Lines, Martin Gebauer of Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., Barry McCallum and Mark Warbanski of AREVA Resources Canada Inc., Ron Matthews of Cameco Corporation, Monte Hummel of WWF-Canada and Alex Hall of Canoe Arctic Inc. An international video project documenting changes witnessed by people who depend on caribou turned its lens on two caribou-range communities earlier this year. Elders, hunters and others in Lutselk’e and Arviat were videotaped for the Voices of the Caribou People project. They shared traditional knowledge, and spoke about their use of caribou, and the social and ecological changes of recent decades. CARMA, an international caribou monitoring network, is doing the video project during International Polar Years as part of its research on caribou and people. The video will eventually be available on CARMA’s website, www.rangifer.net/carma.
With spring comes the time to crown a new Caribou Management Scholarship Fund winner. This year, in a break from tradition, the BQCMB honoured two students, each of whom is pursuing her PhD. Zeroing in on the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq herds, University of Alberta biological sciences student Liv Vors will examine the link between population fluctuations and factors like predation, disease, availability of summer food, human harvest, and the depth and hardness of snow. And veterinary medicine and biological sciences student Bryanne Hoar of the University of Calgary is studying how climate change affects a parasite in barren-ground caribou called Osteragia gruehneri. Find out more about the students’ projects at www.arctic-caribou.com/scholarship.html. Caribou News in Brief is funded by the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board. It is produced twice a year by M.E.S. Editing and Writing Services. ISSN 1489-3436. Opinions expressed are those of the editor and contributors. Back issues available at www.arctic-caribou.com and in microform from Micromedia Limited. All comments and suggestions are welcome, and may be sent to:
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