Important areas for cetaceans in Russian Far East waters

Abstract

1. Cetacean species are highly mobile, most of them regularly travelling over long distances, thereby presenting complex obstacles to their conservation.Identification of their critical habitats, specifically those parts of a cetacean's range that are essential for day-to-day survival and for maintaining a healthy population growth rate, is necessary for their effective protection.2. This study presents a summary of the data on cetacean sightings during surveys that covered substantial parts of the Russian Far East coastal waters from the Okhotsk Sea to Chukotka in order to determine important areas for particular cetacean species. Sixteen cetacean species were registered during the surveys, and for 12 of them with sufficient numbers of sightings, zones with maximum sighting rates were identified. 3. Only 13% of all cetacean sightings and 22% of sightings of protected species occurred within marine protected areas (MPAs). The highest sighting rates for protected species were concentrated off north-eastern Sakhalin Island, in the Shantar Area, in Anadyr Gulf, in Kresta Bay and in the waters off eastern Chukotka. The analysis of the distribution patterns of various cetacean species in Russian Far East seas provides a solid base for future conservation planning. Lack of specific MPAs for protection of cetaceans and associated biodiversity hinders marine conservation in Russian Far East seas. 4. The study highlights the specific zones important for various cetacean species and suggests the extension of some existing MPAs and the creation of new MPAs for future spatial habitat protection measures. K E Y W O R D S biodiversity, critical habitat, dolphins, important marine mammal areas, marine protected areas, whales 1 | INTRODUCTION Cetacean species are highly mobile, most of them regularly travelling over long distances, thereby presenting complex obstacles to their conservation. Spatial protection of the entire home range of foraging toothed whales, much less migrating baleen whales, is impractical.There are, however, strategies to address this problem. The starting point is the identification of critical habitats, specifically those parts of a cetacean's range that are essential for day-to-day survival during specific seasons, as well as for maintaining a healthy population growth rate (Hoyt, 2011). Various criteria have been proposed for defining critical habitats for cetaceans, such as their importance for

Humpback whale sightings in northern Arctic Alaska

“…Hope, Alaska (Moore et al, 2022; Figure 2). Likewise, the nearshore region of Chukotka from the northern Bering into the Chukchi Sea has been proposed as a marine protected area for cetaceans based on recent gray and humpback sightings (Filatova et al, 2022).…”

“…Hope, Alaska (Moore et al, 2022; Figure 2). Likewise, the nearshore region of Chukotka from the northern Bering into the Chukchi Sea has been proposed as a marine protected area for cetaceans based on recent gray and humpback sightings (Filatova et al, 2022). Despite many hours of aerial survey effort during summer and early autumn months, there were relatively few sightings of humpbacks north of 71 N (Brower et al, 2018;Clarke et al, 2020;Shelden et al, 2017).…”