INUIT KNOWLEDGE OF LONG-TERM CHANGES IN A POPULATION OF ARCTIC TUNDRACARIBOU

Indigenous peoples possess knowledge about wildlife that dates back ma ny generations. Inuit observations of historical changes in a caribou population on southern Baffin Island, collected from 43 elders and act ive hunters during 1983-95, indicate that caribou were abundant and th eir distributions extensive in most coastal areas of southern Baffin I sland from c.1900-25. Subsequently, caribou distributions contracted a nd abundance declined, probably reaching an overall low in the 1940s. Beginning in the mid-1950s, distributions and abundance increased grad ually, at least until the mid-1980s. Changes in distribution occurred mainly during autumn, as caribou migrated to their wintering areas. Wi thin most wintering areas, increases in caribou abundance followed a p rocess of range expansion, range drift (i.e., expanding on one front w hile contracting on another), and finally range shift (i.e., mass emig ration to a new winter range). During the population decline and low, the caribou often exhibited winter range volatility (i.e., frequent, u npredictable interannual range shifts). On the basis of Inuit descript ions of caribou abundance, we estimated that the population as a whole decreased an average of 9% annually from 1910 to 1940, and then incre ased about 8% annually from 1940 to 1980. This pattern was largely con sistent across southern Baffin Island. As Inuit elders had predicted i n 1985, the population essentially abandoned its highest-density winte ring area on Fore Peninsula during the late 1980s, apparently emigrati ng en masse to a new wintering area on Meta Incognita Peninsula, about 375 km to the southeast. Inuit knowledge suggested that caribou popul ation fluctuations are cyclic, with each full cycle occurring over the lifetime of an elder. Both this study and historical records dating f rom 1860 support a periodicity of 60-80 years for fluctuations of the South Baffin caribou population. Inuit elders suggested that the abund ance of caribou on wintering areas decreases several years after carib ou occupy small coastal islands, a phenomenon currently occurring thro ughout southern Baffin Island, except on Cumberland Peninsula. The Inu it recognize two ecotypes of caribou: migratory upland-lowland caribou and resident mountain-plateau caribou. After migratory caribou from F ore Peninsula shifted their winter range around 1990, Meta Incognita P eninsula was occupied by both ecotypes. The migratory caribou apparent ly occupy low elevations, while the resident caribou remain in the mou ntains, producing two seasonal migratory patterns. Inuit knowledge pro ved to be temporally and spatially more complete than the written reco rd.