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SSF-Svalbard Science Forum

Passive monitoring of endangered species in Svalbard: Distribution & relative abundance of Red Listed whales in a time of climate change

Awarded: NOK 0.30 mill.

Sea ice in the Arctic has declined in recent decades at an unprecedented rate and continued sea ice declines are expected to produce a seasonally ice-free Arctic well before the end of this century. This would be a first for the Arctic in over 5+ M years. A summer-time ice-free Arctic Ocean will have significant effects on ocean circulation and our global climate system and it will have impacts throughout Arctic ecosystems. Predicted implications for the organisms that have become residents of the unique Arctic sea ice habitat have been described as "transformative". For its mammalian residents, Arctic sea ice has been a spatially extensive, virtually disease free habitat that is to a great degree sheltered from open-water predators and many human impacts . It has been a low-competition environment that has provided a spatially predictable, seasonally-rich food supply and an environment that is sheltered from storm action for the mammals that have succeeded in dealing with the prevailing cold temperatures, risk of ice entrapment, dramatic seasonality and other aspects of an ice-associated lifestyle. All of Svalbard's resident whales have evolved within the Arctic sea ice environment, or joined it, over the millions of years of its existence, including narw hals Monodon monoceros, white whales Delphinapterus leucas and bowhead whales Balaena mysticetus. Although most projections of future impacts on Arctic marine mammals are quite negative, the reality is that our ability to predict the impacts of global war ming on ice-associated cetaceans is limited because we lack base-line data on their current local abundance, seasonal distribution and habitat requirements. We would like to answer the research challenges of monitoring Svalbard's resident whales by establ ishing a passive acoustic array in Svalbard. This new approach (PAM, passive acoustic monitoring) has a minimal environmental-footprint and is ideal for sensitive species that are broadly dispersed at low densities.

Funding scheme:

SSF-Svalbard Science Forum