1 SUBMISSION BY GOVERNMENT OF NUNAVUT 2 . LEE: you. So I'll wait for the 3 presentation to come up. you. 1 So I'm not sure -- is it tab 6? It's in the 2 binder, the presentation -- tab 7. 3 So to be clear, I'll be making this presentation 4 because, as Drikus said, unfortunately, Mitch Campbell, 5 who was the polar bear biologist, was unable to attend. 6 But I participated in this survey with Marcus and 7 Mitch Campbell, who also participated asked if I could 8 give the presentation. 9 I have provided parts of this presentation before 10 in discussions with the communities prior to the survey 11 taking place. So for some of you the slides should be 12 familiar. Okay. Next slide, please. 13 So some background that Marcus wanted to provide 14 was that the last western-based aerial survey took 15 place -- the results were provided in 2011, and at that 16 time Stapleton et al -- it would be Atkinson, Stephen 17 Atkinson -- presented a result or an estimate of about 18 1,000 polar bears for that population that you see 19 outlined by that red line. 20 At one of the last public hearings Nick Lunn, who 21 is here for Environment Canada, presented their most 22 recent analysis of Western Hudson Bay for a certain 23 period, and their analysis was quite complex. It 24 involved all of the mark recapture data that they 25 conduct, and it showed at that time that it had been 1 stable for the period, not necessarily the last decade, 2 because the time period has changed since then. And, 3 of course, with IQ and local observations. 4 I was involved with Gabriel Nirlungyak in 2007 5 when we had a public hearing in Arviat. And all the 6 elders there, including many who passed away since 7 then, have increasingly and consistently stated that 8 they had been seeing more bears, and I suspect that 9 we'll hear that today. 10 So one of the major concerns was that previous 11 studies relied primarily on capturing bears, and a 12 of concerns were expressed by Inuit about the effects 13 of the drugs. Next slide, please. 14 So based on those concerns, NTI had passed a 15 resolution for less intrusive methods, and the 16 vernment of Nunavut responded by implementing these 17 aerial surveys. So in the past they relied more 18 exclusively on physical mark recapture, meaning that 19 every bear, almost every bear in Western Hudson Bay was 20 tranquilized and measured. And the GN decided to 21 utilize a different method and to do an aerial survey, 22 and that's why I was involved. 23 Because, as many of you know, Mitch Campbell the 24 regional biologist and I have been doing caribou 25 surveys for the last ten years in the Kivalliq Region, 1 so ikus asked us to help him with doing an aerial 2 survey. Next slide, please. 3 This is just a presentation, a figure of the 2011 4 results, and it gives you an indication of where the 5 bears were seen during this survey. Next slide, 6 please. 7 I already mentioned this, but this was the 8 analysis that Environment Canada had done, so here it's 9 more specific. It provides the exact period, 1987 to 10 2011. Nick is here, so if there are any questions on 11 this, especially the results -- I didn't review this 12 for this hearing -- I would defer to Nick. But, 13 essentially as long as that's estimated, it had 14 estimated 806 bears in 2011. I'm just pausing for the 15 interpreter. Okay. s. 16 I already mentioned this. The main point I would 17 say about using aerial surveys is that it doesn't 18 provide the same type of information that physical mark 19 recapture does. Physical mark recapture, because 20 you're measuring the bears and you're collecting 21 different type of information, that information could 22 be used often to predict the productivity of the 23 population. We can measure some of these aspects with 24 aerial surveys, but they're arguably not as robust as 25 doing physical mark recapture. So there is a trade-off 1 when we do the aerial surveys. But the vernment of 2 Nunavut and NTI felt that it was valuable because Inuit 3 had expressed such concerns about the physical mark 4 recapture. Next slide, please. 5 So in response to many concerns, especially 6 because Arviat was potentially facing a quota 7 reduction -- and I think their quota was -- the 8 vernment of Nunavut initiated an aerial survey to 9 examine the population status. So I helped 10 Mitch Campbell with the actual design of the survey, 11 and we tried to ensure that the survey design was as 12 similar to the last survey, 2011, so that the results 13 could be as comparable as possible. Next slide, 14 please. 15 For the collection of IQ and hunter observations, 16 I know that Arviat has conducted a number of projects 17 previously. Certainly Gabriel and I interviewed some 18 hunters, but also the Arviat HTO did their own IQ 19 study, and that was presented at one time to the NWMB. 20 For this particular survey, Mitch Campbell and I, 21 prior to the survey, visited all of the communities, 22 and we tried to incorporate as many of the concerns and 23 recommendations that they had about the survey design. 24 Of course, we weren't able to implement all of 25 their recommendations, but some of the recommendations 1 we tried to implement was to ensure as many ions were 2 surveyed. So, offshore, that required using different 3 equipment. We also had as many transects inland as 4 possible where the density was questioned, and we also 5 decreased the distance between transects for some of 6 the areas, based on information we received. Next 7 slide, please. 8 One of the other major pieces of information that 9 we used were movements from satellite collared bears. 10 So just to be clear, these bears are not collared by 11 the vernment of Nunavut. They're part of, I believe, 12 the Environment Canada program, and, thankfully, they 13 shared that information with us readily. So we were 14 able to use this information to sure that the 15 timing of the survey was adequate, that we maximized 16 the window where we could observe the bears on the 17 coast and, where it became less problematic, to site 18 them as they moved -- especially the females -- moved 19 inland. Again, also trying to sure that it was as 20 similar as possible to the last survey. Next slide. 21 So based on that, these are -- each of the lines 22 that you see are lines that either a fixed wing or a 23 Twin Otter in that top area, purple, flew. In the 24 medium or moderate and high density we flew those lines 25 with helicopters. One was an EC135 which 1 Mitch Campbell and Marcus Dyck navigated, and the other 2 one was a Long Ranger which I navigated. So you can 3 see that the coverage was extensive from almost 4 Chesterfield Inlet all the way down to and across the 5 border of Manitoba into Ontario. 6 I also wanted to mention that, for the Nunavut 7 portion, Mitch Campbell and I had just completed a 8 musk ox survey. So those transects can be considered 9 to extend almost to three hundred kilometres 10 further inland, and we did not observe any polar bears 11 on that musk ox survey. The polar bear survey was 12 conducted right after the musk ox survey -- like, 13 immediately after. Next slide, please. 14 This just gives you a comparison between the 15 survey conducted in 2011 and 2016, and you can see that 16 they're quite similar, as similar as possible in terms 17 of the design. Next slide, please. 18 Okay. So the timing of the survey was conducted 19 in late August. I know that this was also a concern 20 raised by many of the communities, and it's certainly 21 one that the vernment of Nunavut is continuing to try 22 to seek solutions, including potentially other types of 23 aerial surveys in the fall that Manitoba routinely 24 conducts. 25 But in order to compare the results of this survey 1 with the last survey, we decided to continue with a 2 survey at the same time period, and, also, we felt 3 confident with the timing because the maximum or the 4 highest density of bears still appear to occur in the 5 Wapusk or Manitoba portion, which is where we were 6 surveying and where we focussed most of our attention. 7 With respect to denning bears, I'm not sure if 8 he's going to go into that, but I'll just mention that 9 one of the issues potentially with denning bears was 10 that we would not actually count them. Our protocol 11 was that whenever we came across a den we examined it. 12 So we went down, and in some cases we actually landed. 13 But in most cases we could see into the den, and in all 14 cases that I was on we were able to detect if the den 15 was occupied or not.