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 first period of this study between 25 July and 30 September 2012.
The major activity during this period consisted of purchasing equipment, deploying the first set of longterm moorings, and opportunistically tagging a gray whale during the Chukchi Sea Acoustics, Oceanography, and Zooplankton (CHAOZ) cruise on 25 August, 2012. The CHAOZ cruise took place from 8 August through 7 September on the chartered research vessel R/V Aquila. Seventeen scientists, technicians, and observers from eight different laboratories and institutions participated on the CHAOZ cruise.