The bowhead is an endangered species, and last month an international panel urged the federal government not to allow the hunt. But Ottawa has signaled its support for what the Inuit say is an attempt to revive an integral part of their culture..
David Kritterdlik, president of the Keewatin Wildlife Federation, the Inuit body organizing the hunt, says environmentalists’ fears about the future of the bowhead population are groundless. Not only are there enough whales to sustain a hunt, he says, but the numbers are growing.
Besides, says Kritterdlik, "we’ve never been involved in the decline of any whales, as far as I know."
Publicly, Canadian government scientists agree that the numbers of Eastern Arctic bowhead, a toothless mammal that can grow to more than 15 metres long, are rising. Privately, however, they are less confident about the population’s health and some suggest the decision to approve the hunt was tainted by politics..
The official government estimate of the Eastern Arctic bowhead population hovers around the 500 mark. That’s only a tiny fraction -- as low as three per cent -- of the pre-whaling population in the early 1800s, and the figures are very rough. But they’re good enough for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, says Iqaluit area manager Gary Weber.
The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement gives the Inuit the right to kill one whale, as long as proper conservation and safety practices are followed..
Some environmentalists, including Anne Doncaster of the International Wildlife Coalition in Toronto, aren’t satisfied the bowhead population can stand the loss of even one whale. "I don’t think that there’s any question that the stock is severely depleted," she says.
Even the lead government biologist on the issue has his doubts, although he won’t criticize it directly. Winnipeg-based Robert Moshenko says that in most cases, the loss of just one individual from a population of a few hundred could do serious damage to the species’ gene pool, and so threaten its long-term survival. When it comes to large mammals such as whales, "it’s a bit of grey area," he says.
The International Whaling Commission, a 50-year-old panel now dominated by anti-whaling member nations, is using a "conservative" estimate of 450 whales. That number is too low to sustain any whaling at all, says commission secretary Ray Gambell at IWC headquarters in London. "Whatever it is, it’s small."
At its annual meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland, last month, the commission passed a resolution "encouraging" Canada not to issue a licence for the hunt. The resolution, a watered-down version of a motion "deploring all whaling," passed by a vote of 15 to 7, with six abstentions.
Both Russia and the U.S. withdrew similar requests for permission to allow aboriginal whaling after they realized they would not win the necessary votes. Siberian whalers wanted to kill five bowheads and the Alaskan Makah tribe sought a quota of five grey whales.
Though historically tolerant of aboriginal whaling for local consumption purposes, the commission agreed this year that environmental factors, such as toxic contamination and climate change, pose more of a threat to whales than does hunting. Added pressure from even small-scale hunts could seriously harm several species already suffering reproductive problems, say whaling opponents.
Canada withdrew its membership in the commission in 1982 and retains only observer status.
Neither the Inuit nor the federal government appear concerned by the international pressure. Kritterdlik insists the hunt will proceed, though plans to distribute whale meat to all 27 Inuit communities in the Eastern Arctic have been scaled back because of a shortage of funds.
Mounting the hunt, which will involve five boats and 14 hunters, and shipping the meat and blubber, or muktuk, across the N.W.T., is expected to cost up to $100,000, he says. So far, Inuit hunters and trappers associations have donated less than half that, and little more is expected. The sale of video footage of the hunt to news agencies is being considered, but no agreements have been made.
"We’re going to go ahead, says Kritterdlik, "but there’s always going to be a problem of some kind."
The government has yet to issue the hunting licence, but Bill Doubleday, the director general of science for Fisheries and Oceans, says the decision has already been made to issue one in time for the hunt.
If the hunt does proceed, it will be the first legal harvest of a bowhead in the Eastern Arctic this century. One was taken illegally two years ago, though charges against the hunters involved were stayed after the Crown prosecutor said the case would be too expensive to try.
The Inuvialuit Inuit of the Western Arctic revived their own bowhead hunt in the Beaufort Sea four years ago, winning a similar licence to harpoon two whales and land one. There are about 7,500 bowhead in the Beaufort and Bering seas, and the Inupiat Inuit of the north coast of Alaska have legally harvested a few dozen annually for several years now.