y’know? sometimes in not just the two legged preditor that floks need to defend themselves against!

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Polar bears stalk streets of town

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Inuit hunters in three Arctic villages want to be able to kill more polar bears, saying there are now so many of the fearsome predators along the east coast of Baffin Island that the streets of their communities are no longer safe.

“They walk through the streets,” said Teema Palluq, a wildlife officer in the community of Clyde River. “You can see one every day in the fall.”

The Nunavut government, hunter’s groups and land claim organizations in the territory are working out “substantive” increases to the annual bear hunt after years of steady population growth in the area, said Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a bear biologist with the government of Nunavut.

“Right now, the bears are so abundant there’s a public safety issue,” he said.

Hunters from the communities of Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq complain that bears are destroying facilities and equipment.

Cabins have been trashed. Seats have been eaten off snowmobiles. Caches of seal and caribou have been gobbled up.

“When you have half the hunters in a community complaining that they’ve lost their summer’s work, then there’s a problem,” said Taylor.

But polar bears, which can weigh up to 650 kilograms, have no fear of stalking humans, and the biggest worry is on the streets.

Hunters are forced to scare the bears off, firing guns in the air while keeping wary hands on the throttles of their snowmobiles.

Preliminary results from the last survey of the so-called Baffin Bay bear population suggested there were about 2,100 of them in 1997. Because hunting quotas were set conservatively low – Clyde River is allotted 21 tags a year – numbers have been growing slowly and steadily ever since.

Taylor puts the number at around 2,400 bears. Local hunters think it’s as high as 2,600.

Under Nunavut’s wildlife legislation, hunting quotas for each community are negotiated between local hunters and the territorial government. Those quotas must be approved by the wildlife management board, then get the final OK from cabinet.

Many Inuit feel those quotas were set too low, said Bert Dean, assistant director of wildlife for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., which administers the Nunavut land claim.

Southern sport hunters pay up to $20,000 per bear for the privilege of shooting one. But most of the bear tags go to the Inuit, who eat the meat and use the skin, and Dean said profit isn’t really the motive for increasing the hunt.

“It’s not that communities are looking to increase the sport hunt,” he said. “It’s become a safety issue and it’s a cultural issue.”