Northern Caribou: Changing Ideas about Humans and Environmental Change

Caribou -- now you see them, now you don't (Credit: Oil on Ice)

Last month the Government of Nunavut (which covers about half of Arctic Canada) imposed a ban on caribou hunting on Baffin Island.  The action was in response to a sharp decline in their abundance.  One of the reasons this is interesting (besides the fact that this is the first time a ban has ever been imposed here) is that it provides a nice signpost of how scientific and local understandings of caribou populations have changed in recent years.

Back in the 1950s biologists warned of a "caribou crisis," with their extinction possibly imminent.  John Sandlos and Tina Loo, among others, have examined this episode in considerable detail.  At the time, officials attributed the decline to human actions, mainly uncontrolled hunting.  Natural factors (that is, factors not traceable back to humans) were explicitly excluded from consideration, mainly, it appears, because such factors weren't subject to management.  They weren't, to use a well-worn word, legible.

Now, though, natural cycles seem to have become a widely accepted feature of northern caribou populations, with their abundance changing dramatically independent of anything humans might do.  One of the consequences is a more adaptive approach to caribou: although they have not necessarily declined because of human actions, the low population suggests the need to stop hunting so that they will not be pushed over the edge.

Overall, this appears to be a story of how historical views of environmental change � in this case, changes in caribou populations � can show both continuity and sharp change.  While it's still acknowledged that yes, caribou populations sometimes decline sharply, explanations for this have changed quite radically.  One of the key factors responsible seems to be a changing view of the relative importance of human and natural agency in the north.