“The mixture of inferior reindeer bloodlines with the native caribou is serious. This has already occurred to a considerable degree, and it is hoped that proper control will be exercised if the reindeer industry is revived in Alaska. Ear-notched animals have been killed in the Anaktuvuk Pass country, and white reindeer have been seen running with the caribou. The number of unrecognized reindeer passing through could be great.”
At present the Barren Ground Caribou is apparently the third most abundant member of the deer family on our continent, being exceeded by the White-tailed Deer and the Mule Deer (cf. Jackson, 1944: 7-8). No other member of this family could be expected to be so eminently and thoroughly adapted to its Arctic environment or to thrive so well on the very ground where nature has been molding and perfecting its characters for thousands of years. No naturally occurring relative—Moose, Deer, or Woodland Caribou—undertakes to compete with it on its own particular range. It requires practically nothing for the maintenance—and increase—of its present numbers, other than an enlightened policy of conservation. (As indicated on a previous page, the feminine wearers of Arctic Fox furs must bear a heavy share of responsibility for the decline of the Barren Ground Caribou in recent decades.) Our highest authorities have pointed out the impracticability of Caribou and Reindeer occupying the same range.
Would it not be the part of wisdom to exclude the inferior domesticated alien, with its difficult and generally unsuccessful culture in North America, and thereby to give the wonderful wild Caribou of the Barrens its best chance for survival?
References.—Chambers, 1914: 350-351; Hornaday, 1914, 2: 105-108; Hewitt, 1921: 323, 329-330; R. M. Anderson, 1924: 330; Kindle, 1928: 74; Seton, 1929, 3: 92-93; Blanchet, 1930: 53-54; Birket-Smith, 1933: 121; Godsell, 1934: 276; Murie, 1935: 7, 1939: 245-246, and 1941: 435; Porsild, 1943: 386, 389; Rousseau, 1948: 96; Harper, 1949: 239; Polunin, 1949: 24; Lantis, 1950; Hustich, 1951; Porsild, 1951: 53; Rausch, 1951: 190; Scheffer, 1951.
[ Numerical Status]
There seems to be a general impression, among those who have known the Barren Ground Caribou at first hand for a considerable period, that the population has been reduced by something like a half during the past generation. “Recent preliminary aerial survey has indicated that their numbers, although less than the previous estimates of 3,000,000 (R. M. Anderson, 1938; Clarke, 1940), which were based upon the carrying capacity of the Arctic tundra, are probably comparable to their primitive numbers in the central portions of the range” (Banfield, 1949: 478). A definite reduction is indicated along the Arctic coast and on the Arctic islands (R. M. Anderson, 1937: 103, and 1938: 400; Banfield, 1949: 478, 481, and 1951a: 13-14). While large numbers still remain in southwestern Keewatin, there are no reports of any such mass occurrence as was witnessed by the Tyrrell brothers on the upper Dubawnt River on July 29, 1893; that throng was estimated at 100,000 to 200,000 animals (J. B. Tyrrell, 1897: 165).
During the big movement of the last week of August, 1947, I may have seen as many as 500 Caribou on one or two days, in herds numbering up to 150 individuals. A striking proportion of those observed seemed to occur in bands of roughly 25 animals. On August 25 Fred Schweder, Jr., reported about a thousand crossing Little River, in bands of as many as 100 individuals. On October 11 Charles Schweder observed a thousand Caribou resting on a hill 3 miles long in the vicinity of Four-hill Creek. In November he found thousands, in herds up to 300 strong, moving south from the upper Kazan River. These figures may give a faintly approximate idea of the numbers occurring in the general region of Nueltin Lake in a year considered less good than an average one. On the other hand, toward the coast of Hudson Bay, there were reports of a greater number of autumn migrants than in ordinary years.
In October, about 1944, tracks indicated that 2,000 or 3,000 animals had crossed Windy River in the vicinity of Four-hill Creek in the night (fide Charles Schweder). About October 10, 1946 (a year of unusual abundance), Fred Schweder, Jr., witnessed the passage of thousands in one day in this vicinity; he got the impression of “the hills moving with Deer.” (Yet this was the season when the Caribou passed mainly to one side of the upper Kazan River, so that nearly one-third of the local band of Eskimos starved to death.) In the first part of May, about 1942 or 1943, John Ingebrigtsen came to a nameless lake, about half a mile by a mile and a half in extent, somewhere east of Duck Lake, Manitoba. It appeared “absolutely full of Caribou,” and he estimated their number at not less than 20,000. This would mean a density of no more than about 50 per acre.
References.—Jones, 1899: 368, 374; J. B. Tyrrell, 1894: 442, and 1897: 10, 49-50, 165; Whitney, 1896: 240; Seton, 1911: 220, 258-260; R. M. Anderson, 1913b: 502; Hornaday, 1914, 2: 225-226; Nelson, 1916: 460; Thompson, 1916: 100-101; Kindle, 1917: 108-109; Buchanan, 1920: 130-131; Hewitt, 1921: 56, 64-66; Stefánsson, 1921: 255; R. M. Anderson, 1924: 329; Blanchet, 1926b: 48, and 1930: 52; Kindle, 1928: 72-73; Seton, 1929, 3: 131-134; Critchell-Bullock, 1930: 159-160; R. M. Anderson, in Hoare, 1930: 52-53; Kitto, 1930: 87; Jacobi, 1931: 201-202; Munn, 1932: 58; Birket-Smith, 1933: 89; Ingstad, 1933: 160; R. M. Anderson, 1938: 400; Clarke, 1940: 65, 84-91, 101-104; Downes, 1943: 258-260; Wright, 1944: 185-188, 191, 193; Yule, 1948: 287-288; Banfield, 1949: 478, 481, and 1951a: 9, 13-14; Harper, 1949: 231, 239; Anonymous, 1952: 261; Barnett, 1954: 96.