Caribou Leadership

Download or read book Caribou Leadership written by Elisabeth Sarah Robins Padilla and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Caribou leaders are a key concept in traditional hunting practice with indigenous caribou hunters of Northwestern Canada. Some hunters perceive that 'letting caribou leaders pass' prevents disruption to caribou migration. This concept was adapted to roadside hunting through an enforced hunting closure on the Dempster highway during the fall migration of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. This study sought to define caribou leaders through traditional knowledge, experimentally test for leadership in captive caribou, and identify barriers to applying the traditional concept to policy. Findings indicate that caribou leaders are defined in multiple context-specific ways, and the term can represent all age and sex classes of caribou. Respondents described practical applications of caribou leadership to ensure caribou harvest or ease reindeer herd management. Female caribou emerged as leaders in pairs during the experiment, which indicated that females could become leaders at this scale. The analysis of 'letting the leaders pass' policy showed that context specificity, together with social and political change, as well as an institutional mismatch prevented continued use of the traditional concept as enforceable regulation"--Leaf iii.