Arctic Whale Ecology Study July 2013 Quarterly Report
December 06, 2013
Through an Inter-Agency agreement (IA) between the National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), NMML is conducting a dedicated multi-year study to determine relationships between dominant currents passing from the Bering Sea into and through the Chukchi Sea and prey resources delivered to the Barrow Arch area (an area of high bowhead whale and prey concentrations between Wainwright and Smith Bay), and to provide information about the dynamic nature of those relationships relative to whale distribution and habitat utilization in the eastern Chukchi and extreme western Beaufort Seas. This study will also provide important baseline data on the occurrence, distribution, and habitat use of large whales in an area that is subject to rapid change in climate and human industrial development. This quarterly report covers the period of this study between April and June 2013.
The major activity during this period consisted of planning for the 2013 vessel survey.
The western Arctic physical climate is rapidly changing. The summer Arctic minimum sea ice extent in September 2012 reached a new record of 3.61 million square kilometers, a further 16% reduction from a record set in 2007 (4.30 million square kilometers). This area was more than 50% less than that of two decades ago. The speed of this ice loss was unexpected, as the consensus of the climate research community was that this level of ice reduction would not be seen for another thirty years. As sea temperature, oceanographic currents, and prey availability are altered by climate change, parallel changes in baleen whale species composition, abundance and distribution are expected (and evidenced already by local knowledge and opportunistic sightings). In addition, the observed northward retreat of the minimum extent of summer sea ice has the potential to create opportunities for the expansion of oil and gas-related exploration and development into previously closed seasons and localities in the Alaskan Arctic. It will also open maritime transportation lanes across the Arctic adding (to a potentially dramatic degree) to the ambient noise in the environment. This combination of increasing anthropogenic impacts, coupled with the steadily increasing abundance and related seasonal range expansion by bowhead (Balaena mysticetus), gray (Eschrichtius robustus), humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) and fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), mandates that more complete information on the year-round presence of large whales is needed in the Chukchi Sea planning area. Timing and location of whale migrations may play an important role in assessing where, when or how exploration or access to petroleum reserves may be conducted, to mitigate or minimize the impact on protected species.