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The North Shore Mi\u2019kmaq Tribal Council is embarking on a study to see if chemicals, such as DDT and glyphosate are affecting moose, a major part of the Mi’kmaw food system.<\/p>\n
Ethan Augustine, the senior biologist with the council’s Anqotum Resource Management team, said while the pesticide DDT \u2014 dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane \u2014 was last used in 1968, its environmental impacts are long lasting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We didn’t know at the time how bad it was, but you know, we started seeing bird populations plummet, notably the bald eagle, which is a very culturally important species to the Mi’kmaq,” Augustine said.<\/p>\n
The council received $150,000 from Indigenous Services Canada’s First Nations Environmental Contaminants program to test moose liver throughout the Miramichi area and the Acadian Peninsula to see if the traditional food source is contaminated with pesticides.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Augustine said three Mi’kmaw First Nations are located in the study area \u2014 Metepenagiag, Natoaganeg and Oinpegitjoig \u2014 and members of those communities will also be collecting samples during the 2026 and 2027 fall hunts.<\/p>\n
“Lots of community members harvest moose for their families, for elders, for the food banks,” Augustine said. “All we need is like a 20 gram chunk of liver\u2026 and we send it off to the lab.”<\/p>\n
WATCH | \u2018Food insecurity is disproportionately high on First Nations communities across Canada,\u2019 biologist says:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783941195_476_default.jpg\")
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Mi\u2019kmaw study to test whether N.B. moose have chemical contaminants<\/p>\n
The North Shore Mi\u2019kmaq Tribal Council received $150,000 from Indigenous Services Canada to test whether chemicals are impacting moose, a major part of the Mi\u2019kmaw food system.<\/p>\n
The livers of the moose will be tested first, and if it is necessary from there, Augustine said the next step would be to analyze a sample of the muscle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The study was prompted by research led by Joshua Kurek at Mount Allison University that showed high levels of legacy DDT in fish tissue and lake sediments in north-central New Brunswick.<\/p>\n
“These lakes happen to be located in areas that my community members go moose hunting, and so we decided to do this proposal,” Augustine said.<\/p>\n
Augustine said he can assume that there will be some presence of DDT in the samples of moose liver tissue collected, since moose tend to eat plants that grow at the bottom of lakes and ponds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the council also wanted the study to look for traces of glyphosate, a herbicide that is still sprayed in the forestry industry to this day and is causing concern among community members.<\/p>\n
But he said it may be more difficult to determine the impact of glyphosate on moose, because that chemical is often sprayed to get rid of broadleaf perennials, which moose really like to eat. So they tend to leave the area if that food source is no longer available, he added.<\/p>\n
“But there is still the possibility of\u2026 catching a moose that has been feeding on that stuff, because as it’s being sprayed, it doesn’t kill it on contact,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s all timing dependent\u2026 depending on when it was sprayed, the turnover of the moose’s tissue and the breakdown of glyphosate itself in the environment, because it breaks down on the scale of weeks versus DDT, which is on the scale of decades.”<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783941195_184_default.jpg\")
The moose liver samples will be collected during the 2026 and 2027 fall moose harvests. (Mile Dembeck)<\/p>\n
Augustine said if high levels of the chemicals are detected in the liver, the group would likely need to then test muscle tissue. If the liver has high levels, but the muscle tissue doesn’t, it could simply be discarded and the rest of the moose meat could be eaten. However, if it becomes clear that high levels of DDT or glyphosate are throughout the moose, that could be an issue for people who rely on moose meat as a main food source. <\/p>\n
“Food insecurity is disproportionately high on First Nations communities across Canada,” Augustine said. “So addressing food insecurity if, you know, we find that our traditional food sources are contaminated, that’s one of the big things that we would call on the government to work on with our communities.”<\/p>\n