Jean-Sébastien Moore knows first-hand that building relationships with Inuit communities can be key to successful research in the Arctic.

The biologist from Quebec City’s Université Laval collaborates with a Fisheries and Oceans Canada research team and Cambridge Bay locals to track the behaviour of migrating Arctic char around southeast Victoria Island, Nunavut, using acoustic transmitters and genetic data. The project, which is supported by Polar Knowledge Canada (POLAR) and its Canadian High Arctic Research Station campus, is of keen interest to the community.

People in Cambridge Bay depend on Arctic char for food and operate a small commercial fishery that’s an important part of the local economy. “Our goal,” says Moore, “is to provide information that will help keep the subsistence and commercial char fisheries healthy well into the future.”

Moore implants tiny transmitters into the char that send acoustic signals to floating receivers, telling him where the fish go and how their behaviour changes from year to year. If they’re poorly placed, these instruments won’t receive signals, but, he explains, local experts have guided the research team to excellent locations that would otherwise never have been considered. “We’ve learned that in the ocean the char follow the coastline, stopping for a while at each estuary. That means that in the event of an environmental emergency like an oil spill from a ship, those areas need immediate protection.”