Caribou confiscated over poaching suspicions

Chisasibi hunter James Hill didn’t think he was breaking any laws when he shot 20 caribou to share with Innu residents of La Romaine reserve on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They wanted to provide their community with meat, but under present rules, they weren’t allowed to hunt caribou. In Chisasibi for a series of exhibition hockey games, the Innu asked Hill if he could do it for them.

Hill harvested the animals over a day and a half in the last week of February as his Innu friends watched.

“They helped me gut them after I shot them,” he said, “Then they pulled them to the road, and they put them away. It was easy: they did all the work.”

For the Innu, that’s where their troubles began. During the six-hour drive back to their home community, they stopped in Chibougamau, where their cargo got the attention of provincial game wardens. The meat of all 20 animals was confiscated.

Hill learned of the incident when he received a call from Cree game warden Thomas Sutherland.

“He called and asked me if I killed caribou for those guys. I told him I did, and that I’d asked Cree Trappers and they said okay, no problem. He asked me how many I shot. I said 20.”

It was important, Hill underlines, that he did not ask to be paid for the hunting. He was simply doing it as a favour, and as a gesture of respect from one community to another.

“I was just giving it to them, because that’s the way Native people like to share,” he said.

According to Hill, Sutherland told him that the situation would be okay. He spoke with another friend who said that most likely the caribou would be given back. “Because they weren’t poaching: it was sharing. It was given to them by us.”

Hill said the situation angers him.

“I’m hunting on Category I lands, I’m a band member,” he said. “I figured everything should be okay. I didn’t think that would happen. You figure, you’re all First Nations, you’re in Quebec. You’re on Cree land.”

At press time, calls to the Chisasibi Wilderness Protection had not been returned. Meanwhile, calls to the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources had resulted in a confusing series of conversations that ended with a referral to a communications officer in Quebec City who, at press time, had not returned any calls. No one in the Chibougaumau office said they were able to discuss the case with the Nation.

Hill said he consulted the Cree Trappers Association before going hunting.

“They said it would be okay,” he said. “The Innu bought me bullets. I didn’t ask for any money. There were lots of guys – they wanted the meat for the community, to give it out.”

Hill said he simply wanted to help. Innu communities on the North Shore are close to the George River caribou herd, which has been in drastic decline since the early 1990s. Where once the herd numbered nearly 800,000, by 2011 it had dwindled by more than half, while the portion of the herd north of Ungava Bay had dropped from 775,000 in the early 1990s to less than 100,000 in 2010. The herd’s numbers may still be dropping. For that reason, hunting of caribou has been banned until the herd can bring its numbers back up.

By contrast, Chisasibi is located in the home territory of the Leaf River caribou herd, which has also seen a decline in its numbers, but nothing as drastic as the George River herd’s dropping population – it has only decreased by about 30%, from over 600,000 in 2001 to 430,000 in 2011.