Photo courtesy Nunavut Department of Environment
A Saskatchewan Environment wildlife biologist specializing in caribou says the annual winter migration in the northern part of the province does not appear to have taken place as usual this year.
Tim Trottier is based in La Ronge and says a herd located in the Northwest Territories usually migrates south to the Fond du Lac area in November or December.
There are theories that the warm winter weather delayed that movement.
Trottier says as of last month, the barren ground caribou had not been spotted in the usual numbers by many northern hunters.
“Some of the reports more recently in January are suggesting that few, if any, caribou actually have come into the province and hunters are reporting that they are travelling as far east as Tadoule Lake to hunt caribou and caribou are almost non-existent north of Saskatchewan in that part of the winter range.”
Trottier says the herd, which summers in Nunavut, does not appear to have made the annual migration to Manitoba and northeastern Saskatchewan.
He says many animals in that heard are tracked using electronic collars.
“Approximately 50 collars on the Qamanirjuaq herd which summers mainly in Nunavut and then moves south into Manitoba and west into the northeast corner of Saskatchewan each winter and those collars were placed on animals across the range.”
Further south, Trottier says winter migration information on Woodland caribou is not yet available.
He notes many of last summer’s wildfires were located in caribou habitat, in the area of the Churchill River.