ShareThisA Canadian Indian tribe in Labrador says they have killed 64 caribou in an area closed to hunting in what some call a brazen assertion of their traditional rights.
Labrador Innu tribe Deputy Grand Chief Peter Penashue has previously spoken out strongly against hunting in this area, home to an endangered herd. This week, though, he said the Innu were short of meat and were going after other caribou they knew also were there.
Conservation officials confiscated 16 carcasses on Wednesday to determine which herd they are from. Penashue said that hunters killed another 48 caribou yesterday and intend to go out again.
He acknowledged that it is not possible to tell by looking at the animals to which herd they belonged, but said the small numbers of endangered animals in the area made it statistically unlikely any were killed.
The situation has not escalated into the sort of open confrontation that marked earlier such hunts. But Penashue criticized the government for what he called a lack of proper consultation on conservation, showing the chasm between the Innu and the province on this issue.
Kathy Dunderdale, Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister of Natural Resources, said that Innu participation in conservation planning has been actively sought and that she had heard no complaints leading up to this hunt.
"I can't tell you where the communication breakdown is," she said. "I need more clarification from the Innu. Because I don't understand it."
The caribou were killed east of Churchill Falls. The zone is closed to hunting because it includes the Red Wine herd, which numbers fewer than 100. But the area is also on the migration path for the much larger George River herd.
Radio-collar signals had earlier showed that animals from both herds were in the area.
"Conservation trumps everything, trumps all other rights," Dunderdale said. "There will be no conservation plan that allows for the hunting of endangered animals."
Penashue once had struck a similar note. Five years ago, he responded furiously when Quebec Innu were hunting in the same closed area at a time when it contained caribou from these same two herds.
"No one knows for sure if Red Wine woodland caribou were killed, or, if they were, how many," he wrote then in The Globe and Mail.
"The hunt in the Red Wine caribou range was not just an illegal protest, it was completely inconsistent with Innu values. ... Putting a threatened caribou herd at further risk can never be justified on the basis of aboriginal rights."
He said last night that "I obviously wouldn't concur with" that statement now, saying that he had lost faith in the provincial government's ability to manage the caribou.
Although the Innu leader had predicted "hundreds" of arrests, the hunt has played out calmly. One person faces charges of assaulting a conservation officer. But the officers mostly hung back, gathering evidence and confiscating carcasses and a firearm.
"We try hard not to do anything to exacerbate the situation," Dunderdale said. "As valuable as these animals are, none of us wants to see a human life lost."
In March, during the killing of endangered caribou by Quebec Innu who crossed into Labrador, conservation officers said they were menaced by hunters. They reported that a helicopter was unable to land because hunters were gesturing as if they were going to throw rocks and rope into the rotors. One helicopter that did land was charged by a snowmobile and had to fly away, the officers said.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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