Peary caribou and barren-ground caribou COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 20

Appendix 1. Population Estimates

Table 5. Population estimates for the Melville and Bathurst Island complexes
Year	Melville^{Table notea} Estimated	Melville^{Table notea} Calculated	Prince Patrick^{Table notea} Estimated	Prince Patrick^{Table notea} Calculated	Bathurst Island complexes Estimated	Bathurst Island complexes Calculated
1961	12799	12799	5001	5001	3608 ^{Table notea}	3608
1962		11845		4464		2952
1963		10962		3985		2416
1964		10145		3558		1977
1965		9389		3176		1617
1966		8689		2835		1323
1967		8041		2531		1083
1968		7442		2259		886
1969		6887		2017		725
1970		6373		1800		593
1971		5898		1607		485
1972	2500	5459		1435		397
1973	3500	5052	790	1281		325
1974	1600	4675	630	1143	266 ^{Table notea}	266
1975		4327		1021		291
1976		4004		911		319
1977		3706		813		350
1978		3429		726		383
1979		3174		648		420
1980		2937		579		460
1981		2718		516		504
1982		2516		461		553
1983		2328		412		606
1984		2155		367		663
1985		1994		328	727 ^{Table notea}	727
1986		1845	181	293		851
1987	729	1708		261		997
1988		1580		233	1103 ^{Table notea}	1167
1989		1463		208		1367
1990		1354		186		1601
1991		1253		166		1875
1992		1159		148		2195
1993		1073		132	2667 ^{Table notea}	2571
1994		993		118	3037 ^{Table notea}, ^{Table notec}	3011
1995		919		105		2183
1996		850		94		452
1997	787	787	84	84	78 ^{Table notea}	78
1998						108
1999						150
2000						208
2001					289 ^{Table noteb}	289

Bold font indicates the years used in trend calculations. Most estimates are for total caribou.

Table notes

Footnote a

Melville and Prince Patrick, adult caribou (Tener 1963, Gunn & Dragon 2002). The Prince Patrick column includes Eglinton, Emerald, Mackenzie King and Brock Islands. Bathurst, all caribou up to 1997 (Miller, 1998 and Miller and Gunn, 2003b) on all islands except Lougheed. The WQEI column in Table 10 includes Lougheed Island.

Return to footnotea referrer

Footnote b

Ferguson pers. comm. for 2001: adult caribou on Bathurst Island.

Return to footnoteb referrer

Footnote c

The 1994 estimate, from unsystematic searches, was reported as 3011 by Miller 1998 and 3037 by Miller and Gunn (2003b).

Return to footnotec referrer

Table 6. Population estimates for the Eastern Queen Elizabeth Islands
Year	Estimated	Calculated
1961	1482^{Table noted}	1482
1962		1466
1963		1450
1964		1434
1965		1419
1966		1403
1967		1388
1968		1373
1969		1358
1970		1343
1971		1329
1972		1314
1973		1300
1974		1286
1975		1272
1976		1258
1977		1244
1978		1231
1979		1217
1980		1204
1981		1191
1982		1178
1983		1165
1984		1153
1985		1140
1986		1128
1987		1115
1988		1103
1989		1091
1990		1079
1991		1068
1992		1056
1993		1045
1994		1033
1995		1022
1996		1011
1997	1000^{Table notee}	1000

Bold font indicates the years used in trend calculations. Estimates are for total caribou.

Table 7. Population estimates for Banks Island and northwestern Victoria Island
Year	Banks Island^{Table notef} Estimated	Banks Island^{Table notef} Calculated	Northwestern Victoria Island^{Table noteg} Estimated	Northwestern Victoria Island^{Table noteg} Calculated
1972	12098	12098
1973		11987
1974		11877
1975		11768
1976		11661
1977		11554
1978		11448
1979		11343
1980		11239	4512	4512
1981		11136		4351
1982	11034	11034		4196
1983		9156		4047
1984		7598		3902
1985	4931	6305		3763
1986		5232		3629
1987	4251	4342	3500	3500
1988		3603		1978
1989	2641	2990		1118
1990		2481		632
1991		2059		357
1992	1469	1709		202
1993		1418	114	114
1994	800	1177	6 caribou ^{Table noteh}	146
1995		976		186
1996		810		238
1997		672		305
1998	558	558	633 ^{Table notei}	389
1999		791		498
2000		1120		637
2001	1587	1587	1628 ^{Table notei}	814

Bold font indicates the years used in trend calculations. Most estimates are for total caribou.

Table notes

Footnote f

All caribou; data from Urqhart (1973), Latour (1985), Larter and Nagy (2000b) and Nagy (1996) and revised by J. Nagy (pers. comm. February 2, 2004).

Return to footnotef referrer

Footnote g

Gunn, Miller & Nishi (2000): all caribou.

Return to footnoteg referrer

Footnote h

Estimate not possible because of the scarcity of caribou.

Return to footnoteh referrer

Footnote i

A survey in 1998 gave 633 caribou and 1 in 2001 gave 1628, but J. Nagy (pers. comm. February 2, 2004) found, by satellite telemetry, that they included some Dolphin and Union caribou. Hence, estimates for 1994, 1998 and 2001 are not possible. For the purpose of trend and current-status calculation, I have arbitrarily divided the 2001 estimate by half here and in Table 10.

Return to footnotei referrer

Table 8. Population estimates for the Dolphin and Union Herd
Year	Estimated^{Table notej}	Calculated
1980	3424	3,424
1981		3,873
1982		4,380
1983		4,954
1984		5,604
1985		6,338
1986		7,169
1987		8,109
1988		9,171
1989		10,373
1990		11,733
1991		13,271
1992		15,010
1993		16,978
1994	14529	19,203
1995		21,720
1996		24,566
1997	27786	27,786

Bold font indicates the years used in trend calculations. Estimates are for total caribou.

Table 9. Population estimates for Prince of Wales Island, Russell Island, Somerset Island, and Northern Boothia Peninsula
Year	Prince of Wales, Russell and Somerset Islands: Estimated	Prince of Wales Russell and Somerset Islands: Calculated	Northern Boothia Peninsula: Estimated	Northern Boothia Peninsula: Calculated
1974	5516 ^{Table notek}	5516	556	556
1975	4383 ^{Table notek}	4383	1890	1890
1976		4673		2076
1977		4983		2281
1978		5314		2505
1979		5666		2751
1980	6043 ^{Table notel}	6043		3022
1981		4443		3320
1982		3267		3646
1983		2402		4005
1984		1766		4399
1985		1299	4831 ^{Table notel}	4831
1986		955		4655
1987		702		4485
1988		516		4321
1989		380		4163
1990		279		4011
1991		205		3865
1992		151		3724
1993		111		3588
1994		82		3457
1995	60 ^{Table notel}	60	3329 ^{^{Table notel}, ^{Table notem}}	3331

Bold font indicates the years used in trend calculations. Most estimates are for total caribou.

Table notes

Footnote k

Fisher and Duncan (1976): estimates for adults converted to all caribou using the percentages of calves that they reported in spot-checks

Return to footnotek referrer

Footnote l

Gunn and Dragon (1998); all caribou. In 1995, too few caribou were seen in the Prince of Wales–Somerset complex for a quantitative estimate and an arbitrary 60 is used as described in the text.

Return to footnotel referrer

Footnote m

The 1995 estimate for Boothia was halved to account for the barren-ground caribou that were counted in the survey but not distinguished, as described in the text.

Return to footnotem referrer

Table 10. Calculated population trends
Year	Melville	Prince Patrick	Banks Island Complex	sum (Σ) Western Queen Elizabeth Island (QEI)	Eastern QEI	ΣQEI	Banks	Northwestern Victoria Island (NWV)	Σ Banks + NWV	Prince of Wales/ Somerset	Boothia	Σ All Peary	Dolphin and Union
First count	12,799	5,001	3,608	24,320	1,482	25,802	12,098	4,512	16,610	5516	556	48,484	100,000
1961	12799	5001	3608	24,320	1,482	25,845						46,522
1962	11845	4464	2952	21,401	1,466	22,867						44,639
1963	10962	3985	2416	18,833	1,450	20,283						42,832
1964	10145	3558	1977	16,572	1,434	18,007						41,099
1965	9389	3176	1617	14,584	1,419	16,002						39,436
1966	8689	2835	1323	12,833	1,403	14,236						37,839
1967	8041	2531	1083	11,293	1,388	12,681						36,308
1968	7442	2259	886	9,938	1,373	11,311						34,839
1969	6887	2017	725	8,745	1,358	10,103						33,428
1970	6373	1800	593	7,695	1,343	9,039						32,076
1971	5898	1607	485	6,772	1,329	8,100						30,777
1972	5459	1435	397	5,959	1,314	7,273	12,098					29,532
1973	5052	1281	325	5,244	1,300	6,544	11,987					28,336
1974	4675	1143	266	2,676	1,286	3,962	11,877			5516	556	27,190
1975	4327	1021	291	2,575	1,272	3,846	11,768			4383	1890	26,089
1976	4004	911	319	2,477	1,258	3,735	11,661			4673	2076	25,033
1977	3706	813	350	2,383	1,244	3,627	11,554			4983	2281	24,020
1978	3429	726	383	2,293	1,231	3,523	11,448			5314	2505	23,048
1979	3174	648	420	2,206	1,217	3,423	11,343			5666	2751	22,115
1980	2937	579	460	2,122	1,204	3,326	11,239	4512	15,751	6,043	3022	28,142	3,424
1981	2718	516	504	2,042	1,191	3,233	11,136	4351	15,751	4,443	3320	26,747	3,873
1982	2516	461	553	1,964	1,178	3,142	11,034	4196	15,487	3,267	3646	25,543	4,380
1983	2328	412	606	1,890	1,165	3,055	9,156	4047	15,230	2,402	4005	24,692	4,954
1984	2155	367	663	1,818	1,153	2,971	7,598	3902	13,203	1,766	4399	22,339	5,604
1985	1994	328	727	1,749	1,140	2,889	6,305	3763	11,501	1,299	4831	20,520	6,338
1986	1845	293	851	1,683	1,128	2,811	5,232	3629	10,069	955	4654	18,489	7,169
1987	1708	261	997	1,619	1,115	2,734	4,342	3500	8,862	702	4484	16,783	8,109
1988	1580	233	1167	1,558	1,103	2,661	3,603	1978	7,842	516	4320	15,340	9,171
1989	1463	208	1367	1,499	1,091	2,590	2,990	1118	5,581	380	4162	12,713	10,373
1990	1354	186	1601	1,442	1,079	2,521	2,481	632	4,108	279	4010	10,919	11,733
1991	1253	166	1875	1,387	1,068	2,455	2,059	357	3,113	205	3864	9,637	13,271
1992	1159	148	2195	1,335	1,056	2,391	1,709	202	2,416	151	3722	8,680	15,010
1993	1073	132	2667	1,284	1,045	2,329	1,418	114	1,910	111	3586	7,936	16,978
1994	993	118	3011	1,235	1,033	2,269	1,177	146	1,532	82	3455	7,337	19,203
1995	919	105	2100	1,188	1,022	2,210	976	186	1,322	60	3329	6,922	21,720
1996	850	94	452	1,143	1,011	2,154	810	238	1,163			7,115	24,566
1997	787	84	78	1,100	1,000	2,100	672	305	1,049			7,313	27,786
1998			108				558	389	977			7,517
1999			150				791	498	947			7,726
2000			208				1,120	637	1,289			7,942
2001	787	84	289	1,100	1,000	2,100	1,587	814	2,401	60	3,329	7,890	27,786
Last Count: Change since 1980	-73%	-85%	-37%	-48%	-17%	-37%	-86%	-82%	-85%	-99%	10%	-72%	712%
Change since first count	-94%	-98%	-92%	-95%	-33%	-92%	-87%	-82%	-86%	-99%	498%	-84%	-72%

Table 10 notes

Actual estimates are shown in bold font, between which the trends are calculated as exponential rates of increase or decrease.
Values are for all caribou including calves except as noted below. Data are from Tables 5 to 9 except 1961 first counts for EQEI and WQEI, which are from Tener (1963), the first count for Dolphin and Union, which is from Manning (1960), and the ΣWQEI, which is from Miller and Gunn (i2003b).
The estimates for NW Victoria for 1997 and 2001 have been omitted because they were found to include an unknown number of Dolphin and Union caribou (see text and Table 7).
The "last count" for Prince of Wales–Somerset is a guess, as no quantifiable estimate was possible.
Estimates for the Melville and Prince Patrick islands complexes are for 1+ year old adults.
The Last Count row uses the most recent estimate or sum. The range of estimates for "All Peary" is 5998 to 9092.

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Peary caribou and barren-ground caribou COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 20

Appendix 1. Population Estimates

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