(Bélugas) Les chasseurs du Nunavik défient l'interdiction

[Animal 0]

Il ne reste presque plus de baleines bélugas et ces salauds de chasseurs continuent de les tuer Ça me dégoûte !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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November 10 , 2006


Nunavik hunters defy DFO beluga ban
“We see it as a direct attack on our traditional way of life”
JANE GEORGE

Adamie Kalingo, the mayor of Ivujivik, says he will defend the Inuit right to hunt beluga. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE).


Frustration, anger and defiance are boiling over in Nunavik as hunters watch masses of migrating belugas pass by and know they’re not allowed to kill any.

“Men, women, and children are affected. We saw children here crying a couple of weeks ago when the hunters were watching the whales coming in and the hunters doing nothing,” said Adamie Kalingo, the mayor of Ivujivik.

For 4,000 years, Inuit and their predecessors have lived near Ivujivik, a place where strong currents keep the sea from freezing and rocky islands host huge bird colonies.

The first recorded encounter between Inuit and Qallunaat took place in 1610 on nearby Digges Island, during Henry Hudson’s fatal expedition to the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage.

After going ashore, misunderstandings led a group of Inuit to attack Hudson’s crew. During the skirmish, some Inuit were killed, and the sailors also suffered injuries and deaths.

A new confrontation is now shaping up between Inuit from the Hudson Strait and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans over beluga. The DFO has been patrolling the region to enforce a total ban on beluga hunting in the Hudson Strait.

“We’ll be polite to them, [but] we see them as our enemies,” Kalingo said of the DFO patrols. “We don’t need that kind of intimidation and provocation.”

The DFO closed the Hudson Strait to beluga hunting in August, after banning all beluga hunting in the Eastern Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay areas for 2006.

“To us, it’s very insulting,” Kalingo said. “When we read these regulations they go right against our culture. So we see it as a direct attack on our traditional way of life. It makes the hunters very angry.”

Ivujivik, population 275, is a community that is centred on the sea; houses are built to gain a good view over the water; men, women and children pass their days looking out the window, following the cycles of marine life.

“They’re seeing these harp seals, killer whales, ducks, murres. They’re watching women fishing for sculpins. So we’re very tightly tied to the sea,” Kalingo said.

As a result of hunting belugas — six as of Nov. 2 — in closed zones, hunters from Ivujivik, Quaqtaq and Tasiujaq are likely to face charges.

“I see it as my duty to be behind them and support them because this is a court that is alien to them,” Kalingo said.

“They know ultimately that they have a right in terms of wildlife that should not be taken away from them. If you take the hunting skills away from the man, it’s very degrading, discriminatory and something we have to fight against, which is why we decided to go ahead and kill some more [belugas].”

Last year, hunters in Ivujivik took 17 belugas in late October. This year, when the belugas swam on their fall migration, seven hunters killed three or four belugas depending on whose numbers are correct.

“Inuit of this village have always hunted in early summer when the ice has begun to break up and in the fall, in early November, late October,” Kalingo said.

“We never over-harvested. We never killed every whale coming through. Even now, we’re just watching them although they are passing by. We don’t need that much meat. We have sufficient quantity that will tide us over to the next season of seal hunting, so we’re just leaving them alone.”

In Akulivik, hunters held off as belugas passed near their community. To comply with DFO regulations, they traveled to another zone to hunt belugas. That hazardous trip only produced two walrus. Some have since lobbied for a community beluga hunt, no matter what the consequences.

In Quaqtaq, a hunter also killed a beluga last week.

“We’re going to have a bigger controversy than the Kativik Regional Police Force [being replaced by the Sûreté du Québec provincial police force in September],” said Johnny Oovaut, the mayor of Quaqtaq, about the restrictions on the beluga hunt.

“Get ready for a big battle,” Oovaut said.

Oovaut disputes the DFO’s scientific evidence, which says belugas migrating through the Hudson Strait include animals from the endangered Eastern Hudson Bay population and that for this reason they shouldn’t be hunted.

He said the DFO has not proven to his satisfaction that belugas are in peril.

“If you can see them in Akulivik today, and we can see them today, this gives you a idea there are a lot of whales,” Oovaut said.

This year, hunters in Tasiujaq also killed two belugas in Ungava Bay, which has been closed for years due to concern over the low number of beluga there.

The 2006-08 Beluga Management Plan for Nunavik says the quota in Nunavik is 170 belugas: 135 from the Hudson Strait, 30 from James Bay and Long Island, and five from the Ottawa Islands.

Because hunters have surpassed the quota by two in Ungava Bay and five in the Hudson Strait, a total of seven will be deducted from next year’s regional beluga quota, according to the plan’s regulations.

DFO officials promised earlier this year they would beef up patrols if hunters went over the 2006 quotas.

This the DFO did, conducting joint patrols with the Kativik Regional Government’s renewable resource officers along with DFO representatives and fishery officers.

Mark T. Gordon of the KRG, who is in charge of the wildlife officers, said extra officers have been in the Hudson Strait communities and Akulivik, doing the best they can to remind hunters about the regulations.

The wildlife officers report the numbers of beluga caught — “that’s what they’re paid to do” — but they’re not the ones who decide whether charges should be laid if hunters decide to defy the regulations.

“We’re out in the field,” Gordon said. “[But] there’s politics involved so we’re sort of caught in the middle.”

http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavik/61110_02.html

[animo-aequoanimo 0]

C'est dégueulasse !!!!

[Animal 0]

Tu peux l'dire !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!