Facebook-fuelled caribou trade raises concerns in Nunavut

Wildlife managers are concerned a booming online trade in cariboumeat may pose a threat to one of the last healthy herds on theCanadian tundra.

Hunters in the central Arctic have been taking so many animalsfrom the Qamanirjuaq herd and sending the meat to parts of Nunavutwhere the hunt is restricted that airlines have been asked to reporton their shipments.

"It's our top, number onepriority over the next several years,"said Ross Thompson of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board.

• Selling caribou meat online may hasten herds' decline: biologist

The Qamanirjuaq herd's rangecovers a huge swath from northern Saskatchewan to Queen Maud Gulf onthe central Arctic coast. Almost 250,000 animals strong, it's notabout to disappear. But the herd is only about half the size it was
in the mid-1990s and biologists are watching.

Aboriginal peoplein two provinces and two territories depend on theherd for food. And as caribou quotas grow tighter across the North,and hunters and the hungry link up on Facebook, pressure on theQamanirjuaq is growing.

'We're not in panic about this'

The tiny community of Coral Harbour on Southampton Island hasbeen shipping out between 5,000 and 7,000 kilograms of meat in thewinter months, said Steve Pinksen of Nunavut's Environment department. That's between 1,500 and 2,000 animals a year, roughlyequal to what the community consumes itself.

Meat is also being shipped from Arviat, Rankin Inlet and Naujaat.

"We're not in panic about this," Pinksen said. "But if theherd does continue a natural decline and at the same time we havea substantial harvest in addition to the subsistence harvest thatdoes pose some concerns for the future."

Most of the meat ends up in Iqaluit onBaffin Island especially after biologists realized the island'sherds had declined by 95 per cent.

"Ever since (then) the Baffin district cut their quota down tozero," said Alex Ishalook, a board member from Arviat. "We arecaribou-eaters and the same goes up there."

Country food on Facebook

Ishalook said most of the trade is between individuals and isfacilitated by Facebook. Social media is popular in isolatednorthern communities and Facebook groups for buying, selling andtrading country foods now have thousands of members.

A whole caribou sells for about $400, said Thompson.

Under the Nunavut land claim, Inuit are the only aboriginal groupin Canada that has the right to sell game.

• Nunavut Inuit back caribou calving grounds protection

Part of the demand is fuelled by the high cost of northerngroceries. Some of it is driven by increasingly tight quotas on
other barren ground caribou herds.

Nine of Canada's 13 major caribou herds are declining.

Earlier this week, one management board in the NorthwestTerritories cut quotas for one of its herds and banned hunting onanother.

The combination of a shrinking resource and the ability to sellwhat was once freely shared is changing things for Inuit, saidIshalook.

"It's not our traditional lifestyle, selling meat," he said.

"We're working on ideas to improve all this selling."

• Wek'ezhii board recommends lowering Bluenose East caribou harvest to 750

The hunt is unrestricted and only the Nunavut Wildlife ManagementBoard can impose a total allowable harvest. Inuit can take and sellas many caribou as they want, Pinksen said.

"It's people utilizing their constitutionally guaranteedrights."

But it may be hard to sustain those rights if all communities onthe Qamanirjuaq range start taking twice as many animals as theyneed for their own use, Thompson said.

"We're not questioning the right, but in order for our board towork on behalf of those communities, we have to take all kinds ofinformation," he said.

"As long as there's the financial factors involved, it's a toughchore we're facing."