Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about the Wolf Harvest Incentive Program by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. My questions are for the Minister of ENR.
Mr. Speaker, there are harvesters who harvest wolves in the territory, and sometimes, rather than bringing them to ENR, they would like to sell them to a family member so that they can make crafts and sometimes clothing. Mr. Speaker, I think what my question is: are harvesters who sell their wolves to private members in the community still eligible for the prime fur bonus incentive from ENR? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to be eligible for the prime fur bonus, their fur needs to be sent to the fur auction and must sell for over $200. Then it would be eligible for the prime fur bonus. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the response. There was a bit of confusion of maybe communications in some regions of the territory for that. Mr. Speaker, that leads to my next question: will the Minister extend the enhanced wolf harvest incentive program to the rest of the barren-ground caribou herds across the Northwest Territories?
The wolf incentive program is being run as a pilot project this year, this winter, to support the conservation and recovery of the two specific barren-ground herds, the Bathurst and Bluenose-East. We heard from our travels around the Tlicho a couple of weeks ago that many of the people there and a lot of the elders felt like the caribou were one of the main, or they took a fair share of the caribou, and they wanted to know what our plans were in trying to deal with that. This particular program is a pilot program that is aimed at those two specific herds for now.
I appreciate the response. Pilot programs like this are definitely a good indicator of what we need to do looking forward and definitely a good opportunity to look at other herds.
Mr. Speaker, grizzly bears and eagles are also a contributing factor of declining caribou herds during the calving season. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister consider co-management with Indigenous groups to better monitor barren-ground herds during those fragile times?
Absolutely. In my conversations with a lot of the Aboriginal leaders that I have been speaking, I said the only way this is going to work is if we work with our Aboriginal partners. We have a number of programs that we are trying, but we have been working very closely with them. We are trying to monitor the herds. We have a couple of programs that are out. One is Boots on the Ground. Another community has Moccasins on the Ground, I believe. We are looking to expand on those programs because what we heard in our tour again was the fact that maybe you should send these monitors out two times a year, once during the winter and once in the summer. I thought that was great advice, so we are looking at that.
I have directed the department to come up with a plan and identify some sources of funding and where we can access those from. The program is well received. We had a great presentation on the Boots on the Ground program during the tour that we had. We had some great video footage, actually, and I am going to see if I can find that video footage and post it somewhere where folks will have access to that footage. I found that footage that we watched, I think, was very helpful and it kind of demonstrated the value of the monitoring programs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response. It looks promising and, as we move towards co-management, self-government, and our own self-determination, it looks like we have something to work with, and I think this is something that we can improve upon as we move forward.
Mr. Speaker, grizzly bears also play a huge role during the calving season and definitely the numbers around the communities in the Northwest Territories have been rising from reports from harvesters and even community members, and bears coming into the communities during the summer and fall season. Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister is: will the Minister look into better incentives for barren-ground grizzly bears in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The GNWT, we currently don't have any specific incentives for the harvest of grizzly bears in the NWT. Again, we will work with our co-management partners and see if we can come up with initiatives towards that if we find that they are a threat. As part of the monitoring program too, we are thinking that they would be able to monitor the number of grizzly bears that are actually following the caribou.
One of the stats that I found quite alarming when we were doing our tour was the fact that I think they followed them and they did the calf count at a certain time of year, and I believe they did a calf count again in the fall, and it was down by almost 80 percent, I believe, so the calf survival rate was very low and a lot of that. It showed right on the video where the wolves in the video were actually stalking the caribou. At the end of the footage, it showed a wolf actually walking away with a calf that it took out of the herd. So we feel that, through enhancing our monitoring programs, we would probably be able to be of a little more of assistance to the caribou and try to control the predators. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
