Satellite telemetry reveals population specific winter ranges of beluga whales in the Bering Sea

Abstract

At least five populations (stocks) of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) are thought to winter in the Being Sea, including the Bristol Bay, Eastern Bering Sea (Norton Sound), Anadyr, Eastern Chukchi Sea, and Eastern Beaufort Sea (Mackenzie) populations. Belugas from each population have been tagged with satellite‐linked transmitters, allowing us to describe their winter (January–March) distribution. The objectives of this paper were to determine: (1) If each population winters in the Bering Sea, and if so, where? (2) Do populations return to the same area each year (i.e., are wintering areas traditional)? (3) To what extent do the winter ranges of different populations overlap? Tagged belugas from all five populations either remained in, or moved into, the Bering Sea and spent the winter there. Each population wintered in a different part of the Bering Sea and populations with multiple years of data (four of five) returned to the same regions in multiple years. When data were available from two populations that overlapped in the same year, they did not occupy the shared area at the same time. Although our sample sizes were small, the evidence suggests belugas from different populations have traditional winter ranges that are mostly exclusive to each population.

Informing Marine Protected Area Designation and Management for Nesting Olive Ridley Sea Turtles Using Satellite Tracking

“…Several studies have used satellite telemetry to describe the horizontal movement data of large marine vertebrates Block et al, 2011;Hawkes et al, 2011;Hazen et al, 2012;Yurkowski et al, 2016;Citta et al, 2017;Vaudo et al, 2017) and to determine overlap with anthropogenic threats such as fisheries (seabirds: Suryan et al, 2007;Bugoni et al, 2009;Žydelis et al, 2011;sea turtles: da Silva et al, 2011;Witt et al, 2011;Revuelta et al, 2015; marine mammals: Geschke and Chilvers, 2010;Rosenbaum et al, 2014;sharks: Holmes et al, 2014), shipping (marine mammals: Mate et al, 1997;Schorr et al, 2009), and in-water habitat degradation (seabirds: Montevecchi et al, 2012;marine mammals: Johnson and Tyack, 2003;Rosenbaum et al, 2014). Satellite telemetry has been critical in evaluating threat exposure for marine species (Witt et al, 2008;Maxwell et al, 2013;Lascelles et al, 2014) and assessing how efficient conservation boundaries, such as Marine Protected Areas (MPA), are at encompassing the wide ranging habitat distribution of migratory species (Hart et al, 2010;Scott et al, 2012;Young et al, 2015;Maxwell et al, 2016).…”

Seasonal patterns in acoustic detections of marine mammals near Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories

“…These bowhead whales are part of the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort stock (Rugh et al 2002) (also known as the western Arctic stock) and spend their winters in the Bering Sea and summers spanning from the Chukchi Sea to the eastern Beaufort Sea. Beluga whales are part of the eastern Beaufort Sea stock and spend their winters in the Bering Sea and their summers throughout the eastern Beaufort Sea (Richard et al 2001;Citta et al 2016). Both bowhead and beluga whales time their migration into the Beaufort Sea based on ice breakup (Clark et al 2015;Hornby et al 2016), typically migrating into the region in early spring.…”

Alphaherpesvirus: Isolation, Identification, Partial Characterisation, Associated Pathologic Findings and Epidemiology in Beluga Whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in Alaska and Arctic Canada

“…The BB beluga population is estimated to be 2467 and this population size appears to be increasing and is, therefore, not designated as "depleted" under the Marine Mammal Protection Act or listed as "threatened" or "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. Though genetically distinct from EBS, both populations overwinter in the Bering Sea but may utilize separate locations (Allen and Angliss 2015;Citta et al 2017). The Alaska CI beluga population is considered sedentary and geographically isolated with belugas permanently residing within the inlet.…”