Ahiak Caribou
Herd
The
Ahiak caribou calve along the Queen Maud Gulf coast in Nunavut and spend the summers mostly in the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird
Sanctuary.
The fall and spring migration leads them through and to the south of the
Thelon Game Sanctuary extending their winter range into the NWT.
In most years the herd winters on the barrens but satellite collars
reveal that in some winters the herd has moved into the boreal forest in
the area northwest of the Saskatchewan border to the north side of Great
Slave Lake.
In
the 1980s, biologists called the herd the Queen Maud Gulf herd, but
adopted the herd’s proper Inuit name in the early 1990s.
While satellite collaring indicates that the Ahiak caribou form a
discrete herd during calving and the rut, their range overlaps with other
caribou herds. Their
traditional calving grounds overlap with the Bathurst herd’s traditional
(but not current) calving grounds, their southern wintering ranges overlap
with the ranges of the Beverly and Bathurst herds, and their northern
winter ranges overlap with the Dolphin and Union herd’s mainland winter
ranges.
Inuit
elders from Gjoa Haven knew that caribou used to calve on the islands
along the Queen Maud Gulf coast and early European explorers such as
Hanbury, in 1901, described caribou migrating north toward the Queen Maud
Gulf coast. In
1949, A. W. F. Banfield, who flew some of the first aerial surveys,
included the Queen Maud Gulf hinterland within caribou summer distribution
and commented on spring migration to the coast.
Scientific
support that Ahiak caribou were a
separate herd with distinct calving and rutting grounds has developed over
the past twenty years.
Supporting evidence came
from several pre-calving surveys done in 1983 and 1995, calving ground
surveys carried out in 1986 and 1996, and satellite telemetry studies
carried out in 1996/1997 and 2001-2004.
Calving
ground surveys estimated 11 265
caribou on the calving grounds in 1986 and 83 134 caribou on the
calving grounds in 1996, which suggests there were as many as 200 000
caribou in the herd. The herd is seasonally hunted by people from Gjoa Haven, Umingmaktok,
Cambridge Bay and Lutsel K’e in some winters.
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