Native Foodways by Michelene E. Pesantubbee Michael J. Zogry

Author:Michelene E. Pesantubbee, Michael J. Zogry [Michelene E. Pesantubbee, Michael J. Zogry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438482620
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2021-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Tłįchǫ Dene Caribou Hunting and Restrictions

Tłįchǫ hunt tundra caribou twice yearly as the animals migrate through Tłįchǫ lands. Tłįchǫ hunting practices have altered over time, particularly with the introduction of a settled lifestyle and snowmobiles, but practices have remained remarkably consistent.12 Helm states that caribou migration fluctuates according to weather and food availability, meaning that exact times and locations for when and where a herd migrates through Tłįchǫ lands varies substantially.13 However, Tłįchǫ elders tell me that their knowledge of caribou movement proves accurate for each migration.

The Bathurst caribou’s fall migration is south from their calving grounds near Bathurst Inlet on the arctic coast, to the tree line between the tundra and the boreal forest on the eastern edge of Tłįchǫ lands. In December Bathurst migrate southwest to the boreal forest near the four Tłįchǫ communities of Behchokǫ̀, Whatì, Gamètì, and Wekweètì, before the herd returns to the tundra in March. The Bluenose East, the secondary herd for Tłįchǫ hunters, travel northwest and west of the four Tłįchǫ communities in winter, making the Bathurst herd more convenient for hunting. Tłįchǫ have appropriated scientific caribou herd categorizations that distinguish between the Bathurst and the Bluenose East in order to comply with hunting restrictions. However, Tłįchǫ traditionally only distinguish between migratory tundra caribou, ekwǫ̀, and boreal woodland caribou, tǫdzi. The latter do not migrate, live in different ecological settings, and have morphological differences from tundra caribou. The Bluenose East and the Bathurst herds are both tundra caribou but are distinguished based on breeding lines; the herds maintain separate calving grounds in May, with the Bluenose East’s calving grounds closer to the Arctic Ocean than the Bathurst’s. Both herds are scientifically classified as Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus.

On January 1, 2010, the Government of the Northwest Territories, citing concerns over an “accelerated rate of decline,” implemented a temporary hunting ban on the Bathurst herd.14 The Bluenose East herd was originally placed under this ban, which was lifted for indigenous hunters although some hunting restrictions were later self-imposed by Dene hunters from Deline.15 The ban consisted of a no-hunting zone for caribou stretching east and north from Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories to the Nunavut border, covering hunting territory of Tłįchǫ and Yellowknives Dene, North Slave Métis, Northwest Territories’ nonindigenous resident hunters, and Northwest Territories’ tourist hunting outfitters.

Tłįchǫ elders told me of lean times in the past without caribou. However, Environment and Natural Resources, the Government of the Northwest Territories’ authority on wildlife management, found that the contemporary population decline of the Bathurst herd constituted a crisis in the species that required government intervention. In the mid-1980s, Environment and Natural Resources wildlife biologists estimated the Bathurst caribou herd population at 475,000 animals. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the Bathurst herd declined to 350,000 animals. The Bathurst herd continued a steady decline to an estimated 166,000 in 2006, then plummeted to less than 32,000 animals in 2009 and remaining stable until 2012.16 Wildlife biologists determined that reduced calf survival, compounded by reduced survival of adult females, caused the Bathurst’s 5 percent annual decline.

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