Thus 20,000
Per Annum Killed By The Indians Is A Liberal Estimate To-Day.
There has been so much talk about destruction by whalers that I
was careful to gather all available information.
Several travellers
who had visited Hershell Island told me that four is the usual
number of whalers that winter in the north-east of Point Barrow.
Sometimes, but rarely, the number is increased to eight or ten,
never more. They buy what Caribou they can from Eskimo, sometimes
aggregating 300 or 400 carcasses in a winter, and would use more
if they could get them, but they cannot, as the Caribou herds are
then far south. This, E. Sprake Jones, William Hay, and others,
are sure represents fairly the annual destruction by whalers on
the north coast. Only one or two vessels of this traffic go into
Hudson's Bay, and these with those of Hershell are all that touch
Caribou country, so that the total destruction by whalers must be
under 1,000 head per annum.
The Eskimo kill for their own use. Franz Boas ("Handbook of American
Indians") gives the number of Eskimo in the central region at
1,100. Of these not more than 300 are hunters. If we allow their
destruction to equal that of the 600 Indians, it is liberal, giving
a total of 40,000 Caribou killed by native hunters. As the whites
rarely enter the region, this is practically all the destruction
by man. The annual increase of 30,000,000 Caribou must be several
millions and would so far overbalance the hunter toll that the
latter cannot make any permanent difference.
There is, moreover, good evidence that the native destruction has
diminished. As already seen, the tribes which hunt the Barren-Ground
Caribou, number less than one-half of what they did 100 years ago.
Since then, they have learned to use the rifle, and this, I am
assured by all the traders, has lessened the destruction. By the
old method, with the spear in the water, or in the pound trap, one
native might kill 100 Caribou in one day, during the migrations;
but these methods called for woodcraft and were very laborious. The
rifle being much easier, has displaced the spear; but there is a
limit to its destruction, especially with cartridges at five cents
to seven cents each, and, as already seen, the hunters do not
average 20 Caribou each in a year.
Thus, all the known facts point to a greatly diminished slaughter
to-day when compared with that of 100 years ago. This, then, is my
summary of the Barren-Ground Caribou between the Mackenzie River
and Hudson's Bay. They number over 30,000,000, and may be double
of that. They are in primitive conditions and probably never more
numerous than now.
The native destruction is less now than formerly and never did make
any perceptible difference.
Finally, the matter has by no means escaped the attention of the
wide-awake Canadian government represented by the Minister of the
Interior and the Royal North-west Mounted Police.
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