I'm in Yellowknife and the incentive program is the harvest of wolves that are smashing the bathurst barrenground caribou herd that are in their wintering zone near our diamond mines east and north of our 3 diamond mines.
There is still an outright bounty to bring the carcass in from any hunting zone within the NT, but the crazy prices are for 1 particular zone.
If you hold a GHL(general hunting license) aka a trappers license then you will get the full amount for the taxidermy quality boarded fur. Though chances of you getting your money now because the auctions are all done online and most people are only buying the cheaper quality furs from lack of physical inspection( a friend of mine is a trapper and has gotten quite a few wolves this year and makes the trip up the winter road to the mines, but it's mostly been his beaver fur taken at the past auction). Also the winter road is now closed, as there is no maintenance done by crews so if you get caught up and stuck in the sometimes 4 ft wide or more and up to 6 ft snow drifts, no one is coming to get you or it'll be at your cost to hire a crew to come get you and they charge by the hr for their equipment. That road can be nasty this time of year ( I've done ice profiling for a company on the tibbet-Contwoyto winter road and even in a Haaglund it's ****ty).
To add, I went up in april of 2017 and harvested a bull with 2 friends who also tagged out and we saw a ton of wasted meat as wanton waste. To clarify, NT resident hunters are only allowed 1 bull for barrenground and the majority of the waste piles were from multiples and up to dozens of animals. You can guess who has the rights to harvest that many animals...
It was just released by our Environment and Natural Resource division that 85+ caribou were harvested in the no-go zone for EVERYONE, including indigenous harvesters, an amount of wanton waste accumulated to 15 complete animals was found. Many local band councils from surrounding communities signed a moritorium to not hunt the BG caribou in those zones to help the population recover. Sadly this COVID-19 situation is turning many into the worst version of their hunter-selves and one Band Chief has been quoted in the media as saying that "You can't expect indigenous hunters to follow the rules( ones they agreed to, mind you) and not hunt in the protection zones, while they are out on the land, doing on the land isolation with their families". He basically gave an out for what is under any other situation called poaching. And we've had a problem with locals on many social media and local buy/sell/trade websites selling what they refer to as 'Dry-meat' for up to $60-80 per large size ziplock bag. Essentially a black market meat sale attempting to be disguised as ' traditional food'. As it stands, even for indigenous hunters, in the hunting regs, it states that one can gift portions of wild game up to 5 lbs to any one person in one 'gift' with no fines or penalty, and monetary gain from wild game meat sales in the NT is illegal.
Basically our finite resource is being treated like ****ing toilet paper and it makes me sick, especially being of Native American heritage and being brought up with the idea of conservation and stewardship in mind when hunting or being in the bush.
