Sex, Age, Condition and Tooth Wear of Harvested Caribou Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus in West Greenland, 1995-1998

Managing ungulate populations in a sustainable way requires monitoring plans to provide useful information about population status and trend. Our aim is to evaluate the use of hunters to collect information about the status of caribou Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus in Greenland. Caribou have been harvested under a quota system since 1995 in four regions of west Greenland. In each year, hunters were asked to return information on the sex, approximate age and body condition of animals harvested, and lower jawbones were collected from animals shot in 1995. The harvest is strongly sex-biased (90:10) towards males. Jawbone length did not vary among regions. Age-specific tooth wear was, however, most pronounced in the northern region (Sisimiut-Kangerlussuaq), probably due to the nature of the substrate in the area. The condition of animals, based on a rump-fat index, appears to be good over all west Greenland, with some slight but consistent differences between regions. We conclude that information provided by hunters will be useful in monitoring the caribou populations, but validation of their information is required.