Tourist vessel traffic in important whale areas in the western Canadian Arctic: Risks and possible management solutions

Halliday, William D.; Têtu, Pierre‐Louis; Dawson, Jackie; Insley, Stephen J.; Hilliard, R. Casey

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2018.08.035

Cited by 27 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The most effective way to reduce the impacts of vessels on belugas would be to exclude vessels from important beluga areas (Halliday et al, 2018b;McWhinnie et al, 2018). However, this option would be difficult to enact in the TNMPA.…”

Section: Management Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beluga Vocalizations Decrease in Response to Vessel Traffic in the Mackenzie River Estuary

Halliday¹,

Scharffenberg²,

MacPhee³

et al. 2019

ARCTIC

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Vessel traffic negatively affects marine mammals by causing behavioural disturbance, acoustic masking, contamination (i.e., oil spills), and ship strikes. Few studies have examined the effects of vessels on marine mammals in the Arctic, but beluga whales appear to be especially sensitive to vessel traffic. We examine how the vocalizations of belugas are impacted by vessel traffic in the Tarium Niryutait Marine Protected Area in the Mackenzie River estuary of the western Canadian Arctic. Between one and four acoustic recorders were deployed between June and August each year between 2015 and 2018 near the only shipping channel at this site. We examined beluga vocalizations from acoustic recordings over four summers and assessed how the distance to the nearest vessel passing the acoustic recorder affected the number of vocalizations. Beluga vocalizations within the range of the acoustic recorder decreased significantly when vessels were within 5 km of the acoustic recorder. This result suggests either that belugas are avoiding the vessel or that they reduce their vocalization in response to vessel traffic. Future work is needed to assess exactly how belugas are reacting to vessel traffic in this area and what the long-term consequences of these reactions are. Management measures for reducing these impacts must be carefully considered, especially since these vessels are very restricted in where they can travel, and many of the vessels are necessary for the livelihoods of local communities.

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Section: Management Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beluga Vocalizations Decrease in Response to Vessel Traffic in the Mackenzie River Estuary

Halliday¹,

Scharffenberg²,

MacPhee³

et al. 2019

ARCTIC

Self Cite

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“…For instance, in Hudson Bay in Canada the small community of Churchill where polar bears spend increasingly more time on shore due to climate change, have experienced a rapid influx of tourists [4]. Wildlife viewing of vulnerable species, such as polar bears, narwhals and beluga whales, is putting additional pressure on species threatened by climate change [52,53]. Our high resolution and seasonal maps of Arctic tourism allow tourist management bodies and environmental organizations to pinpoint the places visited by tourists and the relative magnitude of visitation across the Arctic and to detect landscape-wide trends in visitation that need to be managed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying tourism booms and the increasing footprint in the Arctic with social media data

2020

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Arctic tourism has rapidly increased in the past two decades. We used social media data to examine localized tourism booms and quantify the spatial expansion of the Arctic tourism footprint. We extracted geotagged locations from over 800,000 photos on Flickr and mapped these across space and time. We critically examine the use of social media as a data source in data-poor regions, and find that while social media data is not suitable as an early warning system of tourism growth in less visited parts of the world, it can be used to map changes at large spatial scales. Our results show that the footprint of summer tourism quadrupled and winter tourism increased by over 600% between 2006 and 2016, although large areas of the Arctic remain untouched by tourism. This rapid increase in the tourism footprint raises concerns about the impacts and sustainability of tourism on Arctic ecosystems and communities. This boom is set to continue, as new parts of the Arctic are being opened to tourism by melting sea ice, new airports and continued promotion of the Arctic as a 'last chance to see' destination. Arctic societies face complex decisions about whether this ongoing growth is socially and environmentally sustainable.

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“…Loss of sea ice has increased hazards associated with marine mammal hunting, to the point that some families no longer teach their children to travel on the ice in winter (Iñupiaq co-author Maija Lukin, personal experience). Sea ice loss has also facilitated increased access for commercial and non-commercial shipping, which has cascading implications for food security resulting from ship-source underwater noise and ship strikes impacting important marine mammal species such as narwhal ( Monodon monoceros ), bowhead ( Balaena mysticetus ), and beluga whales ( Delphinapterus leucas ) (Halliday et al 2018 ; Huntington et al 2021 ). The effects of these changes are often exacerbated by regulatory constraints such as limited hunting seasons or prohibiting the use of certain species.…”

Section: Implications For Well-being In the Arcticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Societal implications of a changing Arctic Ocean

Huntington¹,

Zagorsky²,

Kaltenborn

et al. 2021

Ambio

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The Arctic Ocean is undergoing rapid change: sea ice is being lost, waters are warming, coastlines are eroding, species are moving into new areas, and more. This paper explores the many ways that a changing Arctic Ocean affects societies in the Arctic and around the world. In the Arctic, Indigenous Peoples are again seeing their food security threatened and cultural continuity in danger of disruption. Resource development is increasing as is interest in tourism and possibilities for trans-Arctic maritime trade, creating new opportunities and also new stresses. Beyond the Arctic, changes in sea ice affect mid-latitude weather, and Arctic economic opportunities may re-shape commodities and transportation markets. Rising interest in the Arctic is also raising geopolitical tensions about the region. What happens next depends in large part on the choices made within and beyond the Arctic concerning global climate change and industrial policies and Arctic ecosystems and cultures.

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Tourist vessel traffic in important whale areas in the western Canadian Arctic: Risks and possible management solutions

Cited by 27 publications

References 24 publications

Beluga Vocalizations Decrease in Response to Vessel Traffic in the Mackenzie River Estuary

Beluga Vocalizations Decrease in Response to Vessel Traffic in the Mackenzie River Estuary

Quantifying tourism booms and the increasing footprint in the Arctic with social media data

Societal implications of a changing Arctic Ocean

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