Wildlife Department

For decades, Tahltans have indicated concerns with declining numbers of culturally-important species including ungulates and marmots. They’ve noted poor recruitment rates, high predator densities, and continued concerns with the provincial licensed hunting system. Tahltan also raised concerns on land use conflicts with cabins and camps, crowding of hunting areas, and challenges in meeting food security needs each season. When licensed hunting decisions were being made, Tahltan knowledge and community concerns were not being considered.

In 2018, Tahltan, as a member of the 3Nations Society, became involved in the 3N BC Collaborative Stewardship Forum (3N-BC CSF). The forum is a collaboration between Tahltan Nation, Taku River Tlingit First Nation, Kaska Nation, and the Provincial Government. The focus of 3N-BC CSF is to support the development of tools and templates and to collect information to assist in each Nation advancing their co-management relationship with the Province. The CSF funds have provided stable annual funds for guardians and wildlife monitoring over the last seven years while allowing for technical information to be collected to support Tahltan decision-making.

In 2019, Tahltan and Canada entered into an agreement under the Canada Nature Fund Target 1 Challenge to establish Tahltan Protected and Conserved Areas through a Tahltan Land Use Planning Process. The agreement, along with other Tahltan agreements, established the Tahltan Stewardship Initiative (TSI), where the monitoring of important community ungulate populations and habitats supported the community design and confirmation of candidate Tahltan Protected and Conserved Areas. The TSI goals were to ensure wildlife and habitat are protected and conserved for future generations, and to support the Tahltan Land Use Planning Process. This has resulted in the Tahltan Stewardship Plan and candidate protected areas.

In 2019, we began conducting monitoring projects and population counts for moose, caribou, and wolves.

In 2020, a TCG resolution recognised that, to change wildlife management in our territory, we needed to take steps with predator management and continue conducting more of our own wildlife monitoring. We needed to show how technical scientific information is consistent with Tahltan Knowledge.

In 2022, TCG and the Province signed the Tahltan Central Government – British Columbia Accord on Wildlife Management in Tahltan Territory which is an evergreen agreement advancing co-governance of wildlife in our Territory.

Over the last seven years we have conducted extensive Tahltan-led monitoring on caribou, moose, and wolves that included collaring, population monitoring through composition surveys for moose and caribou, stratified random block (SRB) surveys for moose (Klappan, Level, Dease-Jade Boulder), seasonal recruitment surveys, and ground monitoring. TCG also collaborated with the Tahltan Guide Outfitters Association, the Province, academic institutions, proponents, and non-government organizations to monitor sheep (collaring, ground investigations, and surveys), mark-resight population surveys for caribou (Tseneglode, Level-Kawdy, Spatsizi, and North Stikine), and an SRB survey on the Spatsizi moose population.

During this time, we expanded our monitoring program to include additional collared caribou and wolves and timely population surveys to keep current estimates/numbers for populations important to our communities. We also supported graduate programs on sheep, advanced cultural burns, and conducted other projects. We are now looking to move from monitoring and information collection to focus more on stewardship, management, and recovery.

The Wildlife Department has advanced wildlife co-management through these initiatives and through collaborations with the Province on regulation changes to moose and caribou licenced hunting. In 2024, limited entry hunting, season changes, and harvest allocations were put in place based on Tahltan and the Province sharing information and using Tahltan Knowledge supported by science. TCG continues leading stewardship in our Territory to support Tahltan-led wildlife decision-making based on our laws and knowledge, values and policies, traditions and cultural practices.