Environment Committee on May 7th, 2015

[Evan Walz]

The decline in caribou populations in the NWT has had a very significant effect on all harvesters, particularly aboriginal harvesters. We recently saw a substantial decline in the Bathurst herd. We're seeing what we believe might be trends on a neighbouring herd, the Bluenose-East. In both of those cases we've placed some fairly strict restrictions. We've gone so far as to have to restrict aboriginal harvest, which is a big deal here in the Northwest Territories, to use plain language.

Our director of wildlife, Lynda Yonge, is here. She can speak to some of the numbers. It has had a dramatic impact to the point where the Bathurst herd, which was once in the neighbourhood of 450,000 or 480,000 animals, we're estimating is down below 15,000 animals. This year we have had to essentially say there is no harvest whatsoever, not even for aboriginal rights holders.

Linda, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

[Lynda Yonge, Director, Wildlife Division, Environment and Natural Resources, Government of the Northwest Territories]

The only thing I want to add is that those declines are not linked to or caused by harvesting of those species. I'm sure many of you know that caribou do have a cycle in which they naturally go up and down, so it's very important, when the caribou are at this low level, that we restrict the harvest and control the harvest so that they'll be able to come back up again.

I just want to make it clear that it's not an overhunting issue, but harvesting does contribute to a decline once they're in a declining phase.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Although hunting is not a particular issue with that incredible decline, and you say it's cyclical, do you have any evidence that the herds have declined to this point in the past?

[Lynda Yonge]

We do have some evidence that the cycles are long. They're probably between 30-year and 50-year cycles. Through traditional knowledge, we do have information that these cycles have happened in the past. In fact, aboriginal people have had to switch game species, food species, and in some cases they starved. We do have evidence that this is not the first time.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Are you familiar with the work of Anne Gunn, previously a caribou biologist with the Government of the Northwest Territories, on the impacts of climate change on these herds?

[Lynda Yonge]

We are.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Do you agree with the conclusions she came to?

[Lynda Yonge]

Dr. Gunn has suggested that the trends in caribou herds are likely linked to climate, and we don't really understand that very well. We're not sure what the changes due to climate change are going to be and how they are going to affect those cycles.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

With this decline in caribou, have you seen migration of other animals into caribou areas?

[Lynda Yonge]

We haven't seen so much related to the decline in caribou, not yet. We don't know if that's going to happen. It doesn't seem to be one species replacing another, but we are, with climate change, seeing new species moving north. Certainly we're seeing more white-tailed deer moving into the north. We're seeing more coyotes. We are seeing that gradual move from the south.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Muskox migration has been reported on a number of occasions.

[Lynda Yonge]

Based on traditional knowledge, it appears that when muskox are in an area—our muskox populations are very healthy right now—they tend to expand, move into new territories, spread out, and then colonize new areas. We are seeing muskox moving south into the treeline now, not necessarily into the same areas that barren ground caribou move through towards the winter, so it's not so much a displacement of barren ground caribou habitat.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

You say we have a healthy muskox population, but we've had some fairly serious die-off in some areas. Is that correct?

[Lynda Yonge]

The muskox in the far north have been declining. Muskox also tend to do a bit of an explosion and then decline. There are still large numbers of muskox, but we have seen a decline up in Banks Island in the High Arctic islands.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

In any circumstance for wildlife management, in terms of how you deal with the wildlife and the kinds of licensing you work through, is this an ongoing task and is there always a role for regulatory processes in determining the health and the harvestability of animal species?

[Lynda Yonge]

Absolutely. Particularly for caribou, which is, in some areas, the most harvested species, we monitor those populations very closely. This year we'll be spending over $1 million doing wildlife population studies on caribou to see how those populations are doing. We take an adaptive management approach, through which we monitor populations, we see how they're doing, and then we adjust harvesting accordingly. We do have a set of priorities for those restrictions on harvesting whereby aboriginal rights holders' rights to harvest are protected and they are the last to be restricted. Commercial harvest is affected first, followed by resident harvest, followed by aboriginal harvest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Sopuck, go ahead, please.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

I appreciate the witnesses' testimony. I found it very interesting.

Just for your information, I am chair of the Conservative Hunting and Angling Caucus, and we're the only party in government that has that kind of caucus. It's been going for a number of years now and I've had the honour of travelling across Canada and meeting with hunting and angling groups.

Mr. Tramburg, with regard to your comments about passion for the outdoors, I live it myself, but experiencing it through talking to these groups across the country is truly extraordinary.

Could you elaborate on how that passion for the outdoors translates into the very extensive conservation programming and projects that the hunting community finances and supports?

[John Tramburg]

As we're well aware, the more dollars and the more emphasis that our customer base and outdoors people across Canada extend in the community, the more those drive the process of conservation.

Mr. Sopuck, are you looking for more specifics in terms of how Cabela's is involved?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Yes. Tell us about Cabela's support for conservation programming as well.

[John Tramburg]

I think it's an excellent question, sir.

Cabela's participates not only in national programs but also more specifically in local communities. Manitoba Wildlife Federation is an example as is Women in the Outdoors. We do really anything we can to support local conservation and the growth of the experience, whether it is bringing new children into the community of hunting, fishing, and angling or just supporting what's already there. That's a specific priority for us and, as I mentioned earlier, every retail location we open has a manager specifically designated to try to encourage and bring more consumers into the fold through supporting outdoor events, through, for example, donating fishing rods, and through setting up training seminars in every store on how to process a pickerel or a jack or on how to field dress a big game animal.

It extends well beyond selling merchandise, to educating people who really want to learn more. In fact, if you go onto www.cabelas.ca, a subset of that website is actually dedicated to store events, which you'll find periodically throughout the year. It includes elements we'll do on weekends just trying to bring more people to the outdoor experience in terms of how to do things in the outdoors, hands-on, as opposed to just selling stuff.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Brecht, as a fellow Manitoban, you know we're both quite familiar with the conservation work that the hunting and wildlife community does back home. Why do you think the role of the hunting community in environmental conservation isn't better known or better appreciated by the population at large?

[Darin Brecht]

Speaking from a private citizen's perspective, I think sometimes it gets caught up in a political discussion, and I think it doesn't get front and centre in the news because there's so much news these days. Let's look at conservation from the perspective I talked about earlier. We really have to look at what we're going to leave for our children and our children's children.

We're urbanizing very quickly. I come from farm families on both sides. You, sir, come from rural Manitoba, from what I understand. What we're really looking at is there's too much noise out there that takes away from what outdoors people should really be concerned about. We hunt and fish on weekends and we go back to our life during the week, and that's it.

As John alluded to this: quite frankly, do we at Cabela's do enough? We probably do not. We could do more, but I will tell you that, from a corporate perspective, our donation policy is strictly around conservation and youth programs. We do not donate to anything other than that. That is important to us. I'll speak from a selfish corporate perspective. Our customers of tomorrow are the youth of today and they are tomorrow's hunters and tomorrow's fishermen. So we have an interest in that.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Turning to the representatives from the NWT, I'd like to follow up on the caribou question. I found the decline in those numbers absolutely astonishing, to have only 15,000 caribou left in that particular herd.

Is it possible there will be wolf predation to such an extent that it will almost prevent that herd from recovering, given that the numbers are that low? I think the biological term for it is a predator pit. What role will the wolf play in keeping that caribou herd low?

[Evan Walz]

Thank you for the question.

We have seen, as we mentioned, some pretty dramatic declines. There has been a lot of talk about predation, about wolves, and we are undertaking studies to try to ascertain the relative health of the herd. Typically when a prey species declines, the predator declines as well.

I'll ask Lynda to speak to some of the specifics, but Mr. Bevington alluded to climate change. We've often said that this decline, as Lynda alluded to, is a 30- to 50-year cycle. There's no one thing that causes it, and as a result of that there's no one solution. There's no silver bullet that's going to fix it. We have to attack this from as many fronts as we can.

Lynda, could you maybe speak to some of the work we have been doing around wolf populations and predation?