UCalgary - Kutz Research Group

06/21/2026

Today, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, we recognize and celebrate the cultures, contributions, languages, and knowledge of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people across Canada. Here in the Kutz Research Group, we are especially grateful for the partnerships we have formed through our work in the North.

Take the time today to reflect on this day and what it means to you and your community. Happy National Indigenous Peoples Day!

06/19/2026

To wrap up our time at the North American Caribou Workshop, we attended the banquet last night, where we ate delicious food and danced our feet off to the RaggedAss Swing Band’s groovy tunes. This morning we did a bit of shopping at some local spots and picked up samples from one of our research partners, the Government of the Northwest Territories. Lots of fun was had this week in Yellowknife, with many connections made, both new and old. We can’t thank the organizers enough for such a great conference! See you in Saskatchewan at the next one! 🦌

06/18/2026

Another full day at the North American Caribou Workshop. In the morning, we had our PhD student, Will Justus, present his work on trace element dynamics in Dolphin and Union caribou. After lunch we got to see another PhD student, Amish Dua, present on seeing change in Bluenose East caribou through Indigenous science. Both projects rely on and are rooted in our collaborations with northern communities and Indigenous knowledge holders.

06/17/2026

Today at the North American Caribou Workshop, one of our past Kutz Research Group members, Andrea Hanke (now with Cloudberry Connections), presented their work on Dolphin and Union (DU) caribou. This project is a collaboration with the Kugluktuk Hunters and Trappers Organization and the Government of Nunavut. Their results showed how the DU caribou and Inuit harvesters would be negatively affected by the Grays Bay Road and Port project in Nunavut.

06/17/2026

Starting our morning at the North American Caribou Workshop at this plenary session. Looking forward to hearing how shared decision‑making, on‑the‑land knowledge, and long‑term partnerships have guided caribou management.

THIS MORNING!

Join us for our Plenary session at NACW, "Caribou, Communities, and Co-Management: More than 40 years of Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Stewardship"

Our Panel features BQCMB Executive Director Tina Giroux-Robillard, Board Chair Earl Evans, and Vice Chairs Stephanie Behrens and James Hodson. We are fortunate to be joined this morning by youth Boris Eyakfwo from Gamètì, NT, and Maya Muckpah from Arviat, NU.

06/17/2026

Today at the North American Caribou Workshop (NACW), three of our lab members got to present about our community-based wildlife health surveillance work. Olivia Hee presented caribou health results collected over the last decade, touching on the importance of our collaborations with community and longterm commitment and trust-building among multiple partners. Rachele Vada presented on new disease syndromes associated with filarioiod worms, also stressing how important it is to work in collaboration with conservation officers, harvesters, biologists, researchers, and the community. Finally, Fabien Mavrot presented on integrating local knowledge and body condition indicators, showing the audience the different ways harvesters and scientists assess caribou body condition and how we can incorporate them into status assessment frameworks. 🦌

06/17/2026

The Kutz Research Group is at the North American Caribou Workshop (NACW) this week in Yellowknife, NT. We spent Monday co-hosting an on the land disease investigation workshop with Dr. Naima Jutha, the wildlife veterinarian and chief veterinary officer for the Government of the Northwest Territories. The morning was spent in the classroom, learning about caribou health, practical surveillance tools, and different examples of health surveillance in northern Canada, and working through a couple real-world scenarios. The afternoon was more hands-on, with a bison necropsy and learning different sampling techniques with our awesome participants. The weather was perfect and the flies were numerous! Big thank you to the folks at the GNWT North Slave regional lab who shared their space and time for the afternoon session of the workshop. Come say hi if you see us at the conference; we promise that we no longer smell like bison.

06/03/2026

Our Northern node of the Kutz Research Group has been busy the last three weeks processing 73 (!!!) sample kits collected by harvesters from three different communities. Harvesters submitted sample kits from caribou, muskoxen, and moose as a part of the community-based wildlife health surveillance program. Olivia Hee, our postdoctoral fellow based out of Yellowknife, luckily had some help from two visitors to the lab: the Kutz Research Group’s summer student, Paige Babin, and a PhD student from UMontreal, Juliette Barbeau. Not pictured are the three heavy coolers of samples that continued their journey to Calgary for further testing. They just baaaarely fit in Olivia's small SUV to be dropped off for transportation south.

05/26/2026

Earlier this month, members of the Kutz Research Group joined a caribou head processing workshop hosted by the North Slave Metis Alliance in collaboration with the NWT Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program (CIMP), Government of the Northwest Territories - Environment and Climate Change (GNWT-ECC), Tłı̨chǫ Government, and Yellowknives Dene First Nation. This workshop was to support a project on health and s*x monitoring of harvested barren-ground caribou on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road. We were happy to join the processing team and are looking forward to seeing what we can learn from all the samples and data collected.

05/21/2026

A new article by CBC North features one of our postdoctoral fellows, Dani Nowosad. A great read on bridging the gap between western science and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (an Inuktitut term for traditional knowledge that translates as “what Inuit have always known to be true”).

🔗CBC article (just delete the two spaces, Facebook doesn't allow linking news articles): https://www. cbc .ca/news/canada/north/researchers-inuit-bridging-traditional-knowledge-science-9.7204934
🔗Dani's original paper: https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/as-2023-0081