A group of Inuit in Clyde River, Nunavut, has decided to research denning habits on the north and east side of Baffin Island in Nunavut. They want to understand how many cubs are born in the dens.
The head of the committee, Inutiq Iqaqrialu, said there is not a lot scientific information on denning, and that’s why he came up with the idea. Another reason is the announced development of a large open pit iron mine in the Mary River area of Baffin Island.
«With the development of Baffinland, we need to do more research on our good food sources,” said Iqaqrialu in Inuktitut.
The field project is getting support from the International Polar Bear Conservation Centre, located at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg. The centre takes in orphaned cubs and raises them for the zoo. Petersen said his research comes only from collecteddata, but that data is often sporadic and inconsistent.
“What we hope is that with a monitoring strategy that the communities are doing themselves they’ll be able to collect that data themselves and look at trends over time.”
Petersen says the information collected by Inuit will provide a better understanding of polar bears.
With files from the CBC.