Abstract
ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 34:149-165 (2017) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00845 Animal Counting Toolkit: a practical guide to small-boat surveys for estimating abundance of coastal marine mammals Rob Williams1,2,3,*, Erin Ashe1,2,3, Katie Gaut4, Rowenna Gryba5, Jeffrey E. Moore6, Eric Rexstad7, Doug Sandilands1, Justin Steventon8, Randall R. Reeves9 1Oceans Initiative, 2219 Fairview Ave E., Slip 9, Seattle, WA 98102, USA 2Oceans Research and Conservation Association, Pearse Island, Box 193, Alert Bay, V0N 1A0, Canada 3Sea Mammal Research Unit, Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 8LB, UK 4Blue Water GIS, 3321 Kelly Road, Bellingham, WA 98226, USA 5Stantec, 500-4730 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC, V5H 0C6, Canada 6Protected Resources Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 8901 La Jolla Shores Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA 7Centre for Research into Ecological & Environmental Modelling, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9LZ, UK 8Steventon Consulting, Seattle, WA 98033, USA 9Okapi Wildlife Associates, 27 Chandler Lane, Hudson, Quebec, JOP 1HO, Canada *Corresponding author: rob@oceansinitiative.org ABSTRACT: 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. KEY WORDS: Abundance · Boat · Bycatch · Capacity · Conservation · Dolphin Full text in pdf format Supplementary material (.zip) PreviousNextCite this article as: Williams R, Ashe E, Gaut K, Gryba R and others (2017) Animal Counting Toolkit: a practical guide to small-boat surveys for estimating abundance of coastal marine mammals. Endang Species Res 34:149-165. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00845 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 34. Online publication date: August 10, 2017 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2017 Inter-Research.
Highlights
Reliable information on abundance and distribution is a cornerstone of many environmental risk assessments and conservation planning processes
Marine mammal abundance estimates are about to become increasingly important as the USA considers a rule that would ban access to US seafood markets unless countries can demonstrate that marine mammal bycatch is sustainable relative to marine mammal population size (Young & Iudicello 2007, Williams et al 2016a)
Charter rates for government survey vessels routinely run into the tens of thousands of US dollars, which puts data collection out of reach for many low-income countries, coastal and indigenous communities, independent scientists and conservation NGOs (Devictor et al 2010)
Summary
Reliable information on abundance and distribution is a cornerstone of many environmental risk assessments and conservation planning processes. We consider 2 primary applications that require information on abundance and distribution of marine megafauna: (1) assessing the sustainability of bycatch or other takes incidental to human activities (Wade 1998); and (2) assessing the conservation status of populations (Hoffmann et al 2008). A recent review of priority research areas for marine mammal bycatch concluded that documenting risk is limited by major gaps in the data available at the population level (Reeves et al 2013). The systematic effort and sightings data that yield abundance estimates yield good distribution data, which are useful for marine spatial planning and prioritizing areas to protect in order to meet global biodiversity conservation targets
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
