This Year 4 report presents the first four years of data for the Nuiqsut Caribou Monitoring Project based
on research conducted by Stephen R. Braund & Associates (SRB&A) under contract to ConocoPhillips
Alaska, Inc. (CPAI). The purpose of the Nuiqsut Caribou Monitoring Project is to document the impacts
of CD4 and other CPAI satellite developments on Nuiqsut residents’ caribou hunting activities. The
monitoring project is an ongoing, multi-year program meant to measure impacts and changes over time.
The intent of the project is to assemble data on impacts on caribou subsistence uses in order to work
toward a common understanding of these impacts by the community of Nuiqsut, industry, and
government oversight agencies. With the assistance of the Kuukpik Subsistence Oversight Panel, Inc.
(KSOPI), SRB&A formed a Nuiqsut panel of caribou experts, whose purpose is to assist with developing
the monitoring plan, reviewing the results of the monitoring program, suggesting changes to the
monitoring program, and identifying active caribou harvesters to interview.
Several types of data are relevant to a common understanding of caribou harvesting impacts: (1) hunter
observations; (2) caribou distribution, abundance, herd size, habitat quality; (3) and caribou harvests over
time. This fourth annual report is based primarily on hunter observations and a comprehensive household
caribou harvest survey.
In November of 2011, SRB&A interviewed 58 active harvesters and one Nuiqsut elder regarding their
caribou hunting activities over the previous 12 months (November 2010 to October 2011). SRB&A also
completed a total of 77 household harvest surveys (82 percent of households) in the community of
Nuiqsut to document community caribou harvests for the 2011 calendar year. Data from the Year 4 active
harvester interviews complement similar data on hunting activities collected for Year 1 (2008), Year 2
(2009), and Year 3 (2010). In addition, the Year 4 household harvest survey data complement harvest
data collected by the study team for Year 3 (2010) in addition to data collected by the NSB and ADF&G
in previous years.
The primary objective of this project is to monitor impacts on Nuiqsut caribou hunting related to CD4 and
other Alpine satellite developments and, in doing so, to facilitate and maintain communication between
the study team, Nuiqsut residents and organizations, the NSB, and CPAI.
