G. Burton Ayles
Three hours north of Yellowknife by Twin Otter, on the Kent Peninsula near Bathurst Inlet, the Nauyuk River flows from Nauyuk Lake through a gap in the high coastal cliffs into Perry Bay. In spring and summer, the lakes, river, tundra covered cliffs, and waters of the adjacent bay are populated by an abundance of bird, mammal, and fish life: peregrine falcons, arctic foxes, eider ducks, geese, swans, siksiks, seals, lake trout, and arctic char.
When Lionel Johnson arrives at the end of May to begin his 15th year of research on the Nauyuk arctic char population, he will probably find the Igliaklut and Kayak families have already arrived by snowmobile and komatik from Coppermine and are fishing seals, lake trout, and char through the ice. These two families have been coming to this particular area for more than two decades, but the presence of saputits, or stone fish weirs, tent circles, caches, and graves indicates that their ancestors have periodically visited this site for generations. Johnson, a federal government fisheries scientist, and his small research team have been coming to Nauyuk since 1973 when the area was chosen as the site for research on the ecology and biology of the fish that is of primary importance to the people of the arctic coast.
Char are remarkable fish. They spawn and spend their early years (up to age 10) totally in fresh water. As they begin to approach maturity, they migrate to the sea every summer to feed on the abundant caplin and arctic cod. Returning to the lake in late August or early September, the plump and silvery fish, now 30 to 50 per cent larger than in June, are fit enough to spend the arctic winter in fresh water without feeding. If they are to spawn the next year they will fast during the following summer, spawn, then continue their fast until the second summer before resuming feeding in the ocean.
New Knowledge, New Ideas
Nauyuk Lake is a site where new knowledge can be gathered and ideas tested before being used in larger-scale fisheries all along the arctic coast. The researchers initially concentrated on studies of the life history of the Nauyuk Lake char. It was Charlie Kayak who first showed Johnson where they spawned. He led them to the area of the spawning beds in small, shallow Willow Lake, upstream from Nauyuk Lake, and described the spawning behaviour he had observed through holes in the ice. As their understanding grew, they were able to concentrate on problems more directly associated with the management of the char.
Through experimental research, Johnson was able to determine the effect of exploitation on a char stock. Each year the downstream migrants were captured and tagged so that any losses could be determined. The families fishing downstream provided information on tags they recovered and provided fish for sampling. The initial population was about 11 000 migrants, of which approximately 900 were harvested each year. This harvest continued at about the same level until 1983, by which time the total population had declined to 2500 fish. An exploitation rate of close to 10 per cent per year was obviously more than this population could sustain for long. The researchers also observed that as the population declined there wæ no change in the mean size of the individual fish being harvested. In southern fish populations, a change in mean fish size is frequently used by managers æ evidence of over-exploitation, but this is obviously not possible with char.
At Wellington Bay, Tree River, and other commercial recreational and subsistence fisheries elsewhere in the Arctic, the understanding acquired at Nauyuk Lake is having an effect. There, departmental fisheries managers turn the results of research, local knowledge, economic and social realities, and the desires of the local community into plans for control and operation of the fishery. Now when new fisheries are being developed, harvest rates are set conservatively at less than five per cent per year of the estimated population size, and the actual number of fish remaining in the population is monitored, rather than just the mean size of individual fish. Other management changes are occurring regularly as the research results from Nauyuk and elsewhere are translated into new management guidelines.
Toward Effective Management
Johnson and his research team are not unique. There are a number of government, industry, university, and community fisheries researchers throughout the Arctic. They all contribute to the knowledge and understanding necessary to effectively manage the economically or socially important fish and marine mammal stock and to protect stocks from over-exploitation, adverse industrial developments, and loss or disruption of critical habitats.
The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) operates the major fisheries and marine mammal research programmes in the Arctic; the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg is responsible for most of the fresh-water and marine fisheries research in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon north slope; and the Arctic Biological Station in Montreal is responsible for northern Quebec. Biologists from the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Centre in S t John's carry out resource assessment research on offshore fish stocks in the North Atlantic. Researchers from the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Victoria, Institute Maurice Lamontagne in Ste-Flavie, Quebec, and the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax carry out biological, chemical, and physical oceanography studies in support of fisheries research in the Arctic.
The following is a brief list of some of the DFO projects undertaken in 1987.
The arctic fisheries research of other agencies is generally secondary to their major activities in the Arctic. Their research may be supported by their own internal resources or by funds from one of the programmes mentioned previously. The petroleum industry has supported a number of studies related to the potential impact of oil and gas development on fish and marine mammals. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) has also supported such research, including surveys and monitoring of bowhead whales and beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea in relation to oil and gas developments, and studies on tainting of fishery resources with hydrocarbons, feeding of bowhead whales, and the reactions of whales to ship traffic. DIAND has also supported studies by consultants and community associations on the quality of fish and marine mammals and their use by the people of the North. Universities also play a role as consultants to government or industry and as researchers on the basic understanding of arctic species.
Next Decade Critical
Despite the number and diversity of institutions and individuals engaged in arctic fisheries research, there are many important areas of knowledge in which our scientific activities and expertise are weak. The report, Canada and Polar Science, released in May 1987 by Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Bill McKnight, makes detailed recommendations on how to deal with problems currently facing Canadian arctic research and the scientific community. Many of the recommendations apply to our fisheries and marine mammal research æ well æ to arctic research in general.
The next 10 years will be critical for research on Canada's arctic fish and marine mammals. Industrial development, population increases, arctic sovereignty, land claims, the World Conservation Strategy, and the actions of animal rights groups are all issues that will have an impact on our requirements for knowledge and understanding. The activities essential for effective management and protection of arctic fish and marine mammals include inventorying, monitoring, desk analysis, experimental management, and experimental research.
This final point brings us back to Nauyuk Lake. What will be going on there a decade from now? The level of intensive research at the site began to decline in 1980, but it is quite likely that in the year 2000 a small research crew from DFO will be returning for at least a few weeks every two or three years. They will determine whether the population has returned to its original state, æ Johnson is currently predicting it will. And if the char population has returned to 11 000 migrants, there will probably be some families from Coppermine there for the summer fishing.
G. Burton Ayles is Director, Biological Sciences, Central
and Arctic Region, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Winnipeg.