NTI offers support to the community of Pond Inlet

(December 5, 2008) Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. 2nd Vice-President Raymond Ningeocheak today stated that NTI has offered support to the community of Pond Inlet.

The people of Pond Inlet have been presented with an unfortunate and unusual natural occurrence. As Inuit, we do not like to see our wildlife suffer. I commend the people of Pond Inlet for taking the most humane and appropriate action under these unique circumstances, said Ningeocheak.

Jayko Alooloo is the chairman of Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization in Pond Inlet. He said this is not a normal event; the last entrapment of narwhals near Pond Inlet occurred over seventy years ago.

Last October, Narwhals were seen returning back through Eclipse Sound, possibly due to Killer Whales sighted in the area. Combined with early ice formation, some of those whales must have gotten trapped. Normally there are pockets of open water as the ice forms, but this year there was two weeks of calm cold weather. The ice in Eclipse Sound formed all at once, right down to Baffin Bay, said Jayko Alooloo.

The focus of NTI is to give support to the Mittimatalik HTO in order to complete the humane harvest and share the maqtaq across the communities of Nunavut.

For further information:

Franco Buscemi
Assistant Director of Communications
Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated
Tel: (867) 975-4939

NR 08-43 PON ENG Trapped Whales in Pond Inlet.doc