WARNING: This story contains graphic details.
The former owner of a remote lodge in northern Manitoba, where the recent Caribú fighters led to accusations of vandalism and the waste of animals, says he believes that the images of dead fetuses on the site were distributed with the intention of making the hunters of the first nations look like. “
The police are investigating the property and Manitoba conservation officers are looking for a potential waste after a robbery and multiple caribu bodies were discovered at the end of last month in Nueltin Lake Lodge, about 30 kilometers south of the Manitoba-Nunavut border.
Nick Scigliano, the owner of Nueltin Lake Lodge, based in the United States, said he found the extensive damage to the property and dozens of dead caribu during a check of the site of April 11, with multiple pregnant cows and fetuses between the bodies.
Scigliano, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation and the Association of Lodges and Outfitters of Manitoba have condemned the Caribú fighters and urged the province to intervene.
But an RCMP spokesman said it is believed that nine Caribou bodies were found on the site, and that the hunters involved were probably residents of the nearby communities of the first nations. Multiple hunting parties may have used the site to clean its caribu, as it seemed abandoned, said RCMP spokesman to CBC previously.
Garry Gurke, owner and operated the old Lake Fly-in Nueltin Lodges from 1988 to 2013 with his wife, Lois, says he suspects that Scigliano, who bought the shelter in 2020, according to court documents, may not have the same experience with the first hunters in the area that he and his wife had.
“I was there for almost 30 years and never, I never had any problems with the people of the first nation that entered my camp,” Gurke told CBC News on Wednesday. “I used to bring them and hunt Caribús with them, and they are very, very respectful.”
Scigliano has not responded to CBC requests for comments on this story.
Gurke said he and his wife had an informal agreement with the hunters of the first nations to register in the shelter while the couple was out during the winter.
In the decades, he and his wife operated the shelter, Gurke said he never saw the hunters of the first nations wasting Caribou near Lake Nueltin, and added that they had employed numerous people from the first nations in the area, and that the business generally attracted some 500 visitors and between $ 1-2 million in revenues per year.
He believes that the images of dead caribu fetuses made public by Scigliano and the Manitoba Wildlife Federation were published on Tuesday with the intention of making the hunters of the first nations look “bad”.
“There is so much prejudice against the people of the first nation,” he said.
He wants to see that the site returns to the communities of the first nations in the region.
“Fight for your land,” it would be his message for those communities, he said. “It should be nothing more than a park [that’s] Property and operated by the people of the first nations. “
Waste ‘is not a reflection of our values’: boss
Chris Heald, the senior policy advisor of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, says the images were published because “taking it to the avant -garde starts the discussion.”
Heald, who went to the shelter with Scigliano and the Police on April 18, said the images were released before the investigations had concluded because the surveillance images on the site continue to show the people who invade the Caribú harvest.
He also refuted the statement of the RCMP, only nine caribu were found outside the shelter. He said that those nine were the only Caribús killed on the day that the RCMP officers talked to a group on the site, but were between 50 and 75 corpses. While some were processed “perfectly”, others stayed with a lot of good flesh, he said.
“No one questions the right of the first nations to reap Caribú,” Heald told CBC News on Thursday. “It is the waste that can no longer happen.”
Treaty -based hunters are exempt from many of the restrictions that non -indigenous hunters must obey, including hunting hours or specific seasons and bag limits, according to the Manitoba hunting guide.
However, they can be charged by the waste of games under the Wildlife Life Law of Manitoba, said a provincial spokesman.
The head of the first Northlands nation, Simon Denechezhe, says that his community, whose ancestral hunting grounds include what is now the Nueltin Lake Lodge site, is deeply disturbed by the reports of the Caribou bodies.
“Our people have always honored Caribú, understanding its importance not only for our way of life, but also for the balance of our ecosystem,” News told CBC in a statement prepared on Wednesday.
“What is reported that it happened is not a reflection of our values or practices.”
The first nation condemns any possible waste of Caribús and wants whoever is responsible, said Denechezhe.
“Caribú is a very sacred animal [that] He has sustained our people for thousands of years, and still is. “
Legal action among the owner of Lodge, first nation
A recent demand also suggests that there may be some pre -existing tension between Scigliano and Northlands, with the owner of the lodge currently involved in legal actions against the first nation with respect to a land dispute of the treaty in the area.
Nueltin Lake Lodge is composed of a network of isolated tourist accommodations, buffers and boat cache that are only accessible by plane, and aims to offer opportunities for tourists to explore the desert of northern Manitoba through guided excursions, says the 2023 demand presented at the Bench of the King Manitoba Court.
The Nueltin Tourism Network originally developed in 1977, approximately a decade before the gurkes bought it, says the demand.
In 2017, a Corona de Manitoba Corporation took possession, but not the property, of the assets of the network due to breeding payments, according to the claim statement.
Scigliano bought the Nueltin Tourism Network of Crown Corporation for $ 780,000 in 2020, and the new property has spent more than $ 3 million since then in an attempt to relive the business and its connected airport, says the demand.
But the lawsuit states that the owner of the Nueltin Tourism Network was not consulted properly and was excluded from the Treaty Land Negotiations in the area by Northlands Denesuline First Nation, the Federal Government, the Provincial Government and the Committee on Land Rights of Treaties of Manitoba.
Northlands signed an agreement with the provincial and federal governments, as well as with the Manitoba Treaty Rights Committee, in 1999, according to a 2023 defense declaration presented by the first nation in response to the demand.
The agreement was promoted by the fact that the first nation has not received 94,000 acres (38,000 hectares) from Crown Land, promised when it became a 10 signer treaty in 1906, says the declaration of defense.
The community chose the lands that wanted to become treated lands as part of the negotiations in 2004, and Northlands says that Scigliano was informed in September 2020 that some of the sites he selected were inside or near the Nueltin Tourism Network, says the document.
The lands selected by Northlands have not yet been officially transferred to the first nation, according to their defense declaration. The demand of Scigliano asks the Court to prevent the transfer from occurring before it can be included in the Treaty Land Law process.
The first nation, and the other defendants, have denied that they were obliged to include Scigliano in the land law process of the Northlands Treaty, according to their respective defense statements.
Northlands states that “an appropriate consultation had already happened at the right time,” when the Gurkes possessed the Nueltin Tourism Network.
Scigliano “failed and/or refused” to contact the director of indigenous relations and northern Manitoba, according to the instructions in the province, and proceeded to buy the Nueltin Tourism Network the next month, Northlands alleges in his defense.
Northlands also states that Scigliano is responsible for the losses he suffered after buying the tourism network, and requested that Sciglian’s demand be dismissed, according to the document.
In a cross claim against the province, Northlands alleges that the province did not cancel, or did not renew, permission, license or lease for the Nueltin tourism network once the company stopped operating in 2013. That was a violation of the obligations of the province under the law agreement of the Treaty, Northlands affirms.
None of the accusations has been tested in court.
