An investigation has been opened over the illegal slaughtering of 10 per cent of the endangered woodland caribou population in North Shore, Quebec, by Innu hunters.

As Laval University biologist and caribou researcher Steeve Cote notes, there were only 500 caribou still alive in the area. Make that four-hundred and fifty.

“That’s a lot,” says Cote. “… The ministry says there are about 500… there are not many, and the densities on the North Shore are low”.

The slaughter occurred during the Innu hunting expeditions in the region. The Innu community of Nutashkuan is believed to be responsible and involved in a similar incident last year.

The woodland caribou is considered a threatened and vulnerable species. Some of the slaughtered caribou had tracking devices around their necks, placed by researchers desperately trying to study them and stave off their extinction.

While Indigenous communities are permitted to hunt migratory caribou for sustenance, hunting the native woodland caribou in Quebec is illegal.

For their part, the Innu community claims the ban on woodland caribou hunting is “useless” and cites fears of losing their culture if they are not permitted to continue hunting.

“… the urgency of the situation for the caribou whose decline is already causing an inevitable cultural loss and jeopardizing ancestral rights and titles,” a February 2021 press release from the First Nations of Essipit and Mashteuiatsh reads.

Last year a community member from Nutashkuan was convicted of killing four caribou in 2016. The judge ruled: 

“There is no agreement with the state to allow it to hunt this species or any recognition of its ancestral right. The band council has no jurisdiction to regulate the practice of this hunting.”

The decision is being appealed. 

Hunting bans have saved species from extinction before. For example, bison in Alberta were nearly hunted to extinction by European settlers and Indigenous tribes, but a hunting ban and the efforts of conservation groups brought them back from the brink.