Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned in my Member's statement, there has been a severe decline of the Bathurst herd in Lutselk'e, and over-hunting is a concern that they had. They hired four staff to help address this. This area in question is quite a large area, and I have a question for the Minister of ENR. What is the Minister's plan to assist the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation with the issue of over-hunting in their region? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Barren-ground caribou are a shared resource and a shared responsibility, and it is important that we all work together to help their recovery. The band is a member of the Bathurst Caribou Advisory Committee, which works on their management plan for the herd. The band also participates in the Bathurst Caribou Range Plan Working Group, which will guide management of the herd moving on, and ENR continues to support the band and other Indigenous governments and organizations with their monitoring. This is in addition to ENR's regular monitoring of the Bathurst caribou herd. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I know that there are two ENR-monitored stations, but there are still a lot of hunters who are not checking in or reporting their harvest. What is the Minister going to do to ensure that proper reporting is met?
I don't know if I heard the last part of the question, but I am thinking. ENR conducts regular ground and aerial monitoring of the mobile zone, and we do have the two checkpoints there. They are manned 24/7 during the season. I know, from talking to some of the hunters, that the monitors and the staff actually stop people and talk to them and communicate, and some of the times, if they have heard or seen some challenges, they investigate that further.
With those four monitors that LKDFN had, I am just wondering if the Minister can make any commitment to the LKDFN to help fund those positions?
No. We are working with the community through the nature fund and some of that stuff there, so the community is actually coming up with the funding. We have monitors right now on the ground. We work with paying for those, again, so unfortunately I can't say we are going to pay for those four, but we do have staff and we do have one staff in the community, an RR-02 position, so right now we do fund those things.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
