Tuesday, 15 June 2010 13:08
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| The last population survey of Baffin Bay polar bears took place in 1997. Nunavut environment officials say the data is getting stale and needs to be updated. (CBC) |
In Nunavut, environment officials have reported early success in using aerial surveys to count polar bears, as opposed to the conventional mark and recapture method, in which scientists handle and tag polar bears before releasing them unharmed.
The mark and recapture method has been controversial in Nunavut because of Inuit concerns regarding the handling and tranquillizing of polar bears. Inuit have also raised health concerns about eating the meat of polar bears that have been tranquillized.
"The best way of determining a population estimate is mark [and] recapture for polar bears, [but] we in Nunavut have been working over the last two years in the Foxe Basin, in developing aerial surveys to be used in coming up with population estimates for polar bears," Drikus Gissing, Nunavut's director of wildlife, said Monday.
13-year-old data
The Baffin Bay polar bear population stretches between Baffin Island and northern Greenland. The last polar bear population survey took place there in 1997, and Gissing said the data needs to be updated.
"The further you go ahead in time from the last survey, that ... becomes more and more inaccurate, and scientists don't like to use very old information on modelling," he said.
In recent years, biologists and Inuit have disagreed on how many polar bears there are in Baffin Bay. Scientists are worried about overhunting and a decline in the population, but Inuit hunters say they have actually seen more bears.
Earlier this year, Nunavut Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk slashed the hunting quota for polar bears in Baffin Bay, saying the bear population there has been "a conservation concern for some time now."
Test survey successful
Gissing said Nunavut government biologists have spent two years testing an aerial survey of polar bears in Foxe Basin.
That survey went so well that the biologists believe the data they've collected would be sufficient for them to give official polar bear population estimates in that area.
So this past spring, the biologists conducted a test aerial survey in Baffin Bay, along the coast near Qikitarjuaq, using cameras and onboard observers.
"I'm cautious to make any predictions on the outcome of the pilot study in the Baffin Bay. However, it was 35 hours that the scientists flew and they saw 29 groups of polar bears; a total of 45 bears were seen," he said.
"That's encouraging that they did see as many as they did. I think they didn't expect to see that many."
If researchers are happy with this spring's test data, Gissing said a full Nunavut-Greenland joint aerial survey of Baffin Bay could take place next year.