We warned you in the December issue of The Hunting Report that the hunting quota for barren ground caribou in Northwest Territories this season would likely be eliminated. (See Article ID 2366.) By the time you read this, that decision may have been finalized. Most of these hunts have already been cancelled, but at least one operator there was still taking bookings at press time. As this was written, official word awaited the decision of the Wek’èezhìi Renewable Resources Board, an agency of the native Tlicho Government in authority there. But all except one person we spoke with clearly expected the board would agree with a recommendation from the Environment Resources Department of NWT (ENR) to eliminate the quotas for outfitters and resident hunters.
Continuing subscribers know we have been following this development since the fall of 2006, when the ENR first said the central barren-ground caribou herds were crashing. Over the last few years the ENR, caribou outfitters, and the local native government basically have been locked in a fight over the issue. The outfitters challenged the ENR’s science, and the native government refused to shut down the hunting, although they did approve the slashing of outfitter and resident non-native quotas. Most recently, the ENR closed all hunting with an emergency order that shut native hunters out of their annual winter hunts, which typically occur in April.....
