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| The Body Condition of Caribou |
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Membership
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Background Information
The Porcupine Caribou Herd There are currently about 125,000 caribou in the Porcupine Caribou Herd. To see where the caribou are at this moment, click on this link: Satellite Collar Locations. They are barren ground caribou specifically known as Rangifer tarandus granti or Grant's Caribou. In the Gwich'in language the caribou are called Vadzaih , in Han, the language of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, caribou is Wëdzèy, and the Inuit word is Tuktu. The Body Condition Monitoring Project This project started in 1987 with a PhD study by Anne Allaye-Chan from the Univeristy of Alaska (Fairbanks) to design a system to monitor the general health of the Porcupine Caribou Herd using hunter-killed animals. Equations specific for this herd were developed to estimate body-weight, the amount of body fat and body protein for an adult cow caribou. A total of 60 whole caribou were used to collect the data to develop the equations. Body weight is important because cows need a minimum weight in order to carry the calf over the winter. Body protein is needed for the cow to give birth to a healthy calf.
The equations use samples collected in July, September, November, and March. These times of the year were chosen because that is when the caribou are accessible to hunters (most of the time). Regular monitoring began in 1991 working with First Nation hunters from Fort McPherson in the NWT, Old Crow, Dawson City and Mayo in the Yukon.
More information on how Body Condition is determined can be found at this link: Body Condition Scoring.
Why do this project? Biologists primarily want to monitor adult cow caribou to keep track of how fat cows are in the fall and how likely they are to give birth to a calf in the spring.
What do hunters collect?
Hunters are provided with the equipment they need to take the tissue samples and measurements. They record 7 things: - The date and location of the kill - Whether or not the cow was lactating - Whether or not the cow had a calf at heel - The weight of the shoulder to estimate the total body weight - Depth of back fat - And an 8th thing, if they can, the Body Condition Score.
There are 4 samples to submit: - A tooth for aging the animal - A metatarsal bone for marrow fat determination - A left kidney to compare kidney fat and for contaminant analysis - The abomasum and faecal sample for parasite analysis.
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