Hunters Trained To Gather Caribou Samples

Hunters Trained To Gather Caribou Samples

Monday, March 15, 2010 at 14:12

A biologist with the Prince Albert Grand Council has been working with northern Saskatchewan hunters recently in an effort to better determine the health of caribou.

For the past few weeks, Tina Giroux has been showing harvesters in the Athabasca basin how to collect samples such as jawbones, kidneys and hind legs from downed caribou.

The purpose is to look at their health and condition.

Giroux says it is no secret the Beverly herd appears to be down in population, and they want to see what may be causing that.

She says the samples will be sent to a lab for analysis.

This is the second year the work has been carried out.

However, it is the first time hunters themselves have been trained to assist in the sampling process.