Animal Counting Toolkit: a practical guide to small-boat surveys for estimating abundance of coastal marine mammals

Endangered species research

Justin Steventon^8¹  Rowenna Gryba^5²  Doug Sandilands^1³  Rob Williams^1,2,3⁴  Erin Ashe^1,2,3⁵  Eric Rexstad^7⁷  Katie Gaut^4⁸  Jeffrey E. Moore^6⁹  Randall R. Reeves^9^1,10 

[1] Environmental Modelling, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9LZ, UK^7;Blue Water GIS, 3321 Kelly Road, Bellingham, WA 98226, USA^4;Centre for Research into Ecological &Oceans Initiative, 2219 Fairview Ave E., Slip 9, Seattle, WA 98102, USA^1;Oceans Research and Conservation Association, Pearse Island, Box 193, Alert Bay, V0N 1A0, Canada^2;Okapi Wildlife Associates, 27 Chandler Lane, Hudson, Quebec, JOP 1HO, Canada^9;Protected Resources Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 8901 La Jolla Shores Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA^6;Sea Mammal Research Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 8LB, UK^3;Stantec, 500-4730 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC, V5H 0C6, Canada^5;Steventon Consulting, Seattle, WA 98033, USA^8

关键词: Abundance;    Boat;    Bycatch;    Capacity;    Conservation;    Dolphin;   

DOI  :  10.3354/esr00845

学科分类：动物科学

来源: Inter-Research

【 摘 要 】

Small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) face serious anthropogenic threats in coastal habitats. These include bycatch in fisheries; exposure to noise, plastic and chemical pollution; disturbance from boaters; and climate change. Generating reliable abundance estimates is essential to assess sustainability of bycatch in fishing gear or any other form of anthropogenic removals and to design conservation and recovery plans for endangered species. Cetacean abundance estimates are lacking from many coastal waters of many developing countries. Lack of funding and training opportunities makes it difficult to fill in data gaps. Even if international funding were found for surveys in developing countries, building local capacity would be necessary to sustain efforts over time to detect trends and monitor biodiversity loss. Large-scale, shipboard surveys can cost tens of thousands of US dollars each day. We focus on methods to generate preliminary abundance estimates from low-cost, small-boat surveys that embrace a ‘training-while-doing’ approach to fill in data gaps while simultaneously building regional capacity for data collection. Our toolkit offers practical guidance on simple design and field data collection protocols that work with small boats and small budgets, but expect analysis to involve collaboration with a quantitative ecologist or statistician. Our audience includes independent scientists, government conservation agencies, NGOs and indigenous coastal communities, with a primary focus on fisheries bycatch. We apply our Animal Counting Toolkit to a small-boat survey in Canada’s Pacific coastal waters to illustrate the key steps in collecting line transect survey data used to estimate and monitor marine mammal abundance.

【 授权许可】

Unknown