Caribou herd avoids zoo, Cree focus now on own dwindling numbers
Quebec’s unilateral decision to relocate a caribou herd from the Val-d’Or region to the Zoo sauvage de St-Félicien has been reversed. Faced with a public outcry, the zoo decided to drop its request to the provincial government to move the entire herd into captivity.
Following the original April 20 decision by Quebec’s Forests, Wildlife and Parks Ministry, an online petition condemning the relocation was launched by Abitibi-Témiscamingue Boreal Action (ABAT), Nature Québec, and the Society for Nature and Parks (SNAP Québec), gaining 15,394 signatures in under a month.
The petition, along with the collective response of First Nations leadership in the region, was enough to overturn the decision. In a statement released June 6, the zoo’s board of directors named “social acceptability” as the main reason behind the reversal.
In a precursor to the zoo’s refusal, Quebec’s environmental review agency BAPE said in a public report that it would not give its approval to the proposed Val-d’Or region Akasaba Ouest mining project. The BAPE report cites the threat to the woodland caribou habitat as too great a risk and goes on to say that it would be “premature to conclude that it would be impossible to restore the [woodland caribou] population.”
While Quebec could have chosen to ignore BAPE’s recommendation, with the zoo’s refusal of the herd, it now has no choice but to shift its efforts to habitat remediation and preservation methods in the Val-d’Or region – a move that could signal the end of the proposed Akasaba Ouest mining project.
“We’re in support of the Val-d’Or herd staying in the wild. We voiced our opinions regarding that,” said Isaac Voyageur, CNG Director of Environment and Remedial Works and Regional Environment Administrator. “If an animal is born in the wild, it should perish there.”
Some says it’s now time for the Cree to focus on their own dwindling herd of migratory caribou. The Leaf River herd of migratory caribou’s population has been in free fall for years.
According to Alan Penn, the CNG’s Lands and Environment Science Advisor, it was estimated that the Leaf River herd’s population stood at “several hundred thousand – perhaps as many as a million” in the 1980s and 1990s. As recently as five years ago, however, the population was thought to be stable at 430,000, but in the summer of 2016 the herd was estimated at just 181,000.
The CNG has long been working with Quebec to mitigate the population loss. Only recently, however, has progress been made. “It’s likely that sport hunting will be closed on the Leaf River herd in 2018-19,” Voyageur told the Nation. “These negotiations have been going on for several years, and now with the recent numbers, Quebec will finally be closing the sport hunt.”
Penn said this development has important management and conservation implications both for the Cree and Inuit.
“However, the situation of the Inuit is likely to become particularly worrying,” said Penn. “They face problems of food security and do not have access to the road networks that have become so important in the Cree hunting economy.”
In total, 10 Inuit and four Cree communities’ food security rely on the seasonal migrations of the Leaf River herd. The coming years will require collaboration, and in some cases, difficult choices to be made by both the Cree and Inuit people.
“The Cree have fought long and hard to try and preserve our herds, but as a nation we have to start making some hard decisions,” said Voyageur. “We need to record our harvest as well as be mindful that regardless of how little we harvest, it will still have an impact on the overall herd.”
Penn sees the future conservation of the Leaf River herd as a challenge, but in every challenge there is an opportunity. “The Cree communities of Eeyou Istchee and the Nunavik Inuit will have to collaborate their conservation efforts – and in doing so maintain the cultural role of caribou in the regional Indigenous hunting economies.”