Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First let me say that I appreciate the Member’s statement and we share the concern of the Member. We have had to call back, or we called together all of the Aboriginal governments, scientific staff and our folks. We’ve had one meeting with the political leadership a few weeks back to look at the results from the Bathurst herd survey, which indicates the herd has continued to decline now into the range of 15,000 animals, down from a high in the mid ‘80s, 1986, from about 460,000 animals. As well, we look at the numbers of the Bluenose-East, which had declined in the area of 30,000 animals and we believe still dropping from about 160,000. So we’ve brought the political leadership together to convene in basically an emergency gathering to look at these dramatic, stark numbers.
Subsequent to that, we brought together all the technical people about a week ago to sit down and look at the information, go over the numbers and talk about options. There’s another meeting next week, and then in early November the political leadership will gather with the intent of making appropriate and necessary decisions about what
we need to do to help protect and save the caribou, both the Bathurst herd and the Bluenose-East.
Currently, there is a tag limit of 300 animals in the Bathurst. In the Bluenose-East there’s a voluntary limit of about 2,800 animals, which was singularly unsuccessful in terms of curbing a harvesting past that. So we’re going to be looking at some very hard choices here in the next couple of weeks. Thank you.