Joint study needed on Baffin Bay polar bear numbers: expert

A Canadian expert on wildlife co-management systems says a joint survey of polar bear populations in Nunavut's Baffin Bay region could resolve disagreements between biologists and Inuit hunters over how many polar bears are there.

A joint research project, done sooner rather than later, would be the best way to bridge the two sides, said Martha Dowsley, an assistant professor of geography and anthropology at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont.

Dowsley, who has studied Nunavut's co-management system in Baffin Bay and its efforts to combine Inuit traditional knowledge and western science told CBC News that "there's no way to resolve [the] conflict right now.

"Scientists are worried that if you just ask for traditional knowledge and rely on that for your information, it's kind of like leaving the fox to guard the hen house; the idea that, of course, hunters are motivated to have a higher quota to catch more bears," Dowsley told CBC News.

"But in talking to hunters, I haven't really found that to be the case," she added. "Usually they want to harvest at sustainable levels and ensure there's bears in the future."

Scientists have said that polar bears in Baffin Bay are being overharvested by hunters in Nunavut in Greenland, while hunters in the area insist the number of polar bears has gone up in recent years.

Those contrasting views are at the heart of a dispute over polar bear hunting quotas in the Baffin Bay area. This fall, outgoing environment minister Olayuk Akesuk accepted a recommendation from the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to keep the quota at 105 bears, despite concerns from government biologists about overhunting.

The biologists had wanted the quota cut to 64 bears or less, sparking an uproar from hunters who threatened to set their own quotas.

The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board is also calling for a joint Nunavut-Greenland survey of the Baffin Bay polar bear population, starting next year. The last such survey there took place more than a decade ago, board officials told the Nunavut government in a recent letter.

But Akesuk told CBC News that the government doesn't have enough money or staff to carry out such an extensive research project, which would take three years to do. The next polar bear study in Baffin Bay is scheduled to take place in 2014, he added.

"Right now, we're focusing on Foxe Basin, because no one has studied them for a while," Akesuk said. "I think it's just 10 years ago or less that we did that population research in Baffin Bay."

The wildlife board says it is willing to contribute $75,000 a year to fast-track a study in Baffin Bay, but government officials say that would cover only seven per cent of the overall costs.

It is not yet clear what the federal government and Greenland plan to do about the Baffin Bay dispute.