The Azores: A Mid-Atlantic Hotspot for Marine Megafauna Research and Conservation

Abstract

The increasing public perception that marine megafauna is under threat is an outstanding incentive to investigate their essential habitats (EMH), their responses to human and climate change pressures, and to better understand their largely unexplained behaviors and physiology. Yet, this poses serious challenges such as the elusiveness and remoteness of marine megafauna, the growing scrutiny and legal impositions on their study, and difficulties in disentangling environmental drivers from human disturbance. We argue that advancing our knowledge and conservation on marine megafauna can and should be capitalized in regions where exceptional access to multiple species (i.e., megafauna 'hotspots') combines with the adequate legal framework, sustainable practices, and research capacity. The wider Azores region, hosting EMHs of all key groups of vulnerable or endangered vertebrate marine megafauna, is a singular EMH hotspot on a migratory crossroads, linking eastern and western Atlantic margins and productive boreal waters to tropical seas. It benefits from a sustainable development model based on artisanal fisheries with zero or minor megafauna bycatch, and one of the largest marine protected area networks in the Atlantic covering coastal, oceanic and deepsea habitats. Developing this model can largely ensure the future integrity of this EMH hotspot while fostering cuttingedge science and technological development on megafauna behavior, biologging and increased ocean observation, with potential major impacts on the Blue Growth agenda. An action plan is proposed.

The Multi-Annual Residency of Juvenile Smooth Hammerhead Shark in an Oceanic Island Nursery

“…We focused on the putative nurseries along the north coast of Faial Island, but the adopted multi-scale approach spans the neighboring island of Pico (the two islands being separated only by a shallow 9-km-wide channel), the chain of seamounts close to the two islands, and, eventually, the whole archipelago. The islands' coastal habitats are greatly influenced by the region's ecotone position and dominant oceanographic regime whereby the southern branch of the warm Gulf Current, which passes south of the islands, and its eddies and filaments promote a dynamic sub-tropical influence on its warmtemperate general character (Santos et al, 1995;Afonso et al, 2020). The shelves of the islands are very narrow, typically dropping from the shore to the break (at ca.…”

“…Finally, these putative EFHs may also play a role of greater importance to the north Atlantic smooth hammerhead population(s) the juveniles (and pupping females) belong to. For example, it is very possible that the oceanic adults and preadults in the tropical north-east Atlantic were born at nurseries located in the Azores and other oceanic islands (Afonso et al, 2020), and that females return to these nurseries to pup later in life via philopatric behavior, as seems to be the case in the Northern Mexican Pacific (Feĺix-Loṕez et al, 2019). In this case, oceanic island nurseries/EFH should explicitly be put in context with other (adult) EFH, including the pupping migrating corridors, in current international fisheries management approaches as implemented by the international bodies (e.g., ICAAT, CBD, and OSPAR).…”

Bryde's whales in the North‐East Atlantic: New insights on site fidelity and connectivity between oceanic archipelagos

“…Cetaceans are a highly charismatic marine megafauna group whose research and conservation presents numerous challenges (e.g. high mobility and amount of time spent below the surface, low detectability and difficulties associated with their identification, large distribution and seasonal migrations of some species, high economic costs of undertaking assessment studies and difficulty in accessing thier oceanic habitats; Mann, 1999; Redfern et al, 2006; Kaschner et al, 2012; Horton et al, 2017; Thums et al, 2018; Afonso et al, 2020). The study of their movement patterns is not only essential for understanding population ecology and biogeographical patterns, but also to assess the conservation status of populations across their entire home range, and evaluate the extent to which they are subjected to increasing anthropogenic impacts (Whitehead, 2001; Sequeira et al, 2018).…”

Migratory movements of Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica naumanni from high Arctic Greenland

“…At-sea surveys are rare for southeast Greenland, but multi-colony studies have shown that the area is rarely used by seabirds during this period (e.g., black-legged kittiwake Rissa tridactyla [57], thick-billed murre Uria lomvia [42], little auk Alle alle [79], Atlantic puffin [47]). In contrast, female puffins traveled farther south and utilized Canadian conservation areas and ecologically and biologically significant marine areas (EBSA) of the western North Atlantic and marine protected areas (MPA) of the high seas along the mid-Atlantic, areas known to have large numbers of wintering seabirds [80][81][82][83].…”