NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Tags: Beaver

Objective(s): 1) To establish the current and past patterns of occupancy of beavers along the Inuvik-Tuk highway, 2) To coproduce monitoring methods for ongoing beaver monitoring and research with community researchers, 3) To develop methods for identification of beaver populations using remote sensing imagery which can be applied across wider areas of the ISR and beyond, 4) To evaluate how well the research program has addressed community needs.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 6116. This project will contribute to the BARIN (Beavers And Socio-ecological Resilience in Inuit Nunangat) research program which addresses changing beaver population and the impacts on lakes and streams, fish and communities and wellbeing. This permitting application is for the beaver population change component of the study. The objectives are: To establish the patterns of occupancy of beavers along the Inuvik-Tuk highway. To establish the patterns of past occupancy of beavers along the Inuvik-Tuk highway. To coproduce monitoring methods for ongoing beaver monitoring and research with community researchers. To develop methods for identification of beaver populations using remote sensing imagery which can be applied across wider areas of the ISR and beyond To evaluate how well the research program has addressed community needs and understand perspective of those from the ISR involved in the program on the research to work towards better approaches to coproductive research. We will survey our study sites (lakes and stream reaches) along the Inuvik-Tuk highway using visual surveys to map dams and lodges, signs of beaver presence will be recorded (feedpiles, beaver present etc). At each location where lodges or dams are present, we will collect shrub samples of both beaver-cut shrubs in the vegetation stand and and uncut shrubs (the uncut shrubs will provide a 'reference chronology' against which we will compare the beaver-cut shrubs to estimate which year they have been cut). We are testing these dendrochronological methods (shrub rings) to try to estimate when beavers were present at a site in the past. We will work with local drone operators and obtain a SFOC (as in 2024) to conduct beaver surveys by drone and also include visual line of sight surveys and will update permitting with SFOC when we will be using drones ourselves. We will combine these ground surveys and data from shrub ring analysis with analysis of high resolution satellite imagery (60cm resolution) to assemble available data on current and past occupancy of beavers. We will use occupancy modelling to estimate past occupancy trends across the sites and identify permanent and transient beaver colonies. We will work with community researchers to implement an phone-based app to collect data GPS, photo and audio-based data (voice recordings) on the location of beaver-related features (lodges and dams), the perceived impacts of beavers in the ISR We will use interview-based research to assess the success of the program and identify ways to improve our coproduction We will regularly provide updates at HTC RBMs (currently Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik but we intend this to expand this to Aklavik and Paulatuk over the course of the project. We will also present at the FJMC annual meeting and provide updates to the IGC. This continues our communication plan under BARIN. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: April 06 - April 19, 2025