Nunavut hunters cry foul over new polar bear management scheme

A new polar bear management system received an icy reception in Iqaluit Wednesday at a Nunavut Wildlife Management Board discussion on the polar bear harvest in the Gulf of Boothia region.

A recently approved credit-based system, the Harvest Administration and Credit System (HACCS,) offers no improvement over the existing quotas in place since 2005, said Ema Qaggutaq, the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board's chairperson, at the management board meeting.

"The current polar bear management plan and HACCS continues to encourage the perception and management of polar bears as 'credits' and numbers. This contrasts Inuit views of polar bears as animate and responsive to how people think about, talk about and treat them," Qaggutaq said.

The Gulf of Boothia polar bear subpopulation — about 1,600 bears — boasts the highest density of polar bears in Nunavut.

Hunters in the region say the number of polar bears has risen and their physical condition is robust.

"Community members have reported they are encountering more Gulf of Boothia polar bears in the last two decades," Qaggutaq said.

"Hunters can tell the subpopulation is increasing because of how easy it is to encounter and or hunt bears, observations every mating season, encountering more females, young bears, and or females with ... up to four cubs, and bears going into meat caches," he said.

"Behaviour also changes when there are more bears. Polar bears are more aggressive when there are higher densities of them."

But now polar bear management is heading in the wrong direction, Qaggutaq said. 

Hunters in Gjoa Haven, Sanirajak, Igloolik, Kugaaruk, Naujaat, and Taloyoak in the Gulf of Boothia region haven't met their full annual quota of 74 polar bears for years, according to information shared at the NWMB meeting. So they amassed a credit of 141 polar bears as of the 2019–2020 harvest season. 

But with quota changes ahead, they may lose all their accumulated credits for the polar bears they didn't hunt.

That's because the new Harvest Administration and Credit System puts all credits back to zero when quotas are changed.

The reset of credits to zero for Boothia polar bear hunters without a big quota increase is "unfair," Qaggutaq said.

Hunter and Trapper Organization speakers from the affected communities said the Gulf of Boothia quota should be increased to 100.