Nunavut Polar Bear Monitoring and Management
The findings of the GN survey, conducted from 1997 to 2000, indicated that the MC sub-population had depleted to less than half of its previous population estimate.
Despite a promise to gather additional information in order to develop an effective management plan for subsequent years[1], the only subsequent government-led research activity between the 1997-2000 survey and the next scheduled population survey in 2014, that we could find in the literature and NWMB archives, was however the publication of a telemetry study (based on previously collected data[2] and a community consultation on the listing of polar bears as a species of special concern under the Species at Risk Act[3].
This speaks to a tangible gap between community priorities and the infrastructure available to those communities to have their priorities sufficiently funded, permitted and researched. While community organizations like HTAs provide insights via consulting, handle requests for community sanction of research funding and permitting, and assume important roles within the research itself, (government) researchers have not made themselves sufficiently available for questions of concern of the community itself. Such dynamics have consequences for ongoing and future (research) partnerships, including those within the BW project.
- ↑ Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (2000, 19 December) Minutes: Conference Call no. 54 [Conference call minutes]. Iqaluit
- ↑ Taylor, M.K. et al. (2006) “Demographic Parameters and Harvest-Explicit Population Viability Analysis for Polar Bears in M’Clintock Channel, Nunavut, Canada,” Journal of Wildlife Management, 70(6), pp. 1667–1673. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2193/0022-541x(2006)70[1667:dpahpv]2.0.co;2.
- ↑ Canada Wildlife Services. (2009) Nunavut Consultation Report Consultations on the Proposed Listing of the Polar Bear as Special Concern under the Species at Risk Act