Social medias allow people to connect from and within communities and provide new ways to share information about ice safety, wildlife and hunting trips. Inspired by the Inuit Hunting stories of the day Facebook group, SIKU is a new social network to facilitate self-determination in research, education and stewardship for Indigenous communities. SIKU (which means ‘sea ice’ in Inuktitut) is a mobile application and web platform by and for Inuit which provides tools and services for ice safety, language preservation and weather. SIKU is a secured social media platform to:

1. Get access to sea ice and weather conditions including up-to-date maps
2. Report information on sea ice condition
3. Report wildlife observations

Basic ecological knowledge on animal distribution, timing of reproduction and reproductive effort is often limited to specific locations/seasons preventing generalization to broader scales/time. Researchers from the Center of Northern Studies created a project within SIKU called Northern Biodiversity aiming at stimulating the report of wildlife observations.

Any wildlife observation (made from town; campsites or during a fishing or hunting trip) can be valuable and be useful to determine:

1. Timing of arrival of animals or blooming of vegetation at a large spatial scale
2. Diet of harvested species (you can even upload pictures of gut content)
3. Reproductive effort (number of cubs or offspring per family group)
4. Relative abundance of resident species during winter

Interested in joining the SIKU community?

Sign-in and download the SIKU app into your mobile phone and join the Northern Biodiversity project! You would be able to access and report:

• Wildlife observations and hunting stories
• Ice observations and dangerous ice reports
• Sea ice and oceanographic tools
• Social posts
• GPS tracks