, 2010). Monitoring is especially Selleckchem CX-4945 important in the TNMPA, where the clumped distribution of belugas makes

them particularly vulnerable to future disturbances associated with industrial activities and development (AANDC, 2012). When selecting indicators for monitoring, it is best to select indicators with existing baseline data, to allow for comparison to that baseline to detect change (Rice and Rochet, 2005). In the case of the TNMPA, beluga distribution and abundance, determined using replicated aerial surveys and the same transects, survey platform, timing and analytical methods as the surveys presented here, would be an indicator of choice. Such surveys in the future would provide opportunities to compare, by subarea and July time period, (1) sighting rates (e.g., whales per km flown), (2) patterns of clustering (e.g., standard distances), and the geographic location www.selleckchem.com/products/jq1.html of ‘hot spots’ that are used by belugas (e.g., contemporary locations of ‘hot spots’ vs those listed in Table 3). This would also complement concurrent, long-term and on-going harvest monitoring efforts in the TNMPA, which have involved sampling harvested belugas since 1980 and revealed an emerging trend of declining growth rates since 2000 (Harwood et al., 2014). Our identification of ‘hot spots’ using the PVC approach provides at least three new and unique opportunity to conduct research on beluga habitat use in the TNMPA. First, it

would be possible to PAK5 further explore the propensity of belugas to aggregate in certain geographic locations of the TNMPA, by obtaining and standardizing data collected by hunters during hunting. The location of areas revealed in this manner could be compared to results from aerial surveys, past and contemporary, to see if patterns are similar or have changed. Changing patterns of beluga habitat use in the TNMPA could be an indication of changes in the quality or characteristics of TNMPA habitat. This could be achieved using shore- or boat-based surveys, and would have the added benefit of engaging beluga hunters as

participants in the research. Hunters would use hand-held GPS units to record spatial-temporal patterns of beluga distribution, and this would reveal changes over the course of the July hunting season, and between years. This would fine-tune our understanding of where and when belugas aggregate in certain areas of the TNMPA. Another means to further study beluga use of ‘hot spots’ in the TNMPA, and compare to past and contemporary locations of the specific areas that the belugas prefer, is through the conduct of acoustic monitoring of the whales and background noise levels in their habitat. This would involve installation of passive acoustic recorders and hydrophones at ‘hot spot’ and ‘cold spot’ areas, to document vocalizations or lack thereof, as a measure of whale occurrence and relative abundance over time (Simard et al., 2010 and Lammers et al., 2013). Preliminary work of this type was initiated in 2011 and 2012 (Simard et al.