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SC/69B/ASI/06
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Resource ID
22008
Access
Open
Document Number
SC/69B/ASI/06
Full Title
Report of the Norwegian 2022 survey for minke whales in the Small Management Area EB ? the Barents Sea and adjacent areas in the Svalbard area ES
Author
Nils Oien, Deanna Leonard, Frederike Bohm
Authors Summary
Report of the Norwegian 2022 survey reports on the progress of a current six-year program to survey the Northeast Atlantic over the period 2020-2025 to get a new estimate of minke whale abundance by the end of this period. In the summer of 2022, the survey plan intended to cover the Small Management Area EB which covers the Barents Sea proper. However, due to the ongoing situation the Russian EEZ could not be surveyed and thus a major part of the EB area remains unsurveyed for estimation of minke whale abundance over the 2020-2025 survey cycle in the Northeast Atlantic. A total of 4,168 nautical miles of primary search effort was conducted within the surveyed area which comprised the Norwegian EEZ of the Barents Sea and adjacent areas at Svalbard. The most common species sighted were minke, fin and humpback whales, white-beaked dolphins, and harbour porpoises. Compared to recent surveys in the Svalbard region, there seems to be a distributional shift for the baleen whale species minke and fin whales away from the area west of Spitsbergen southwards to Norwegian coastal waters as well as eastwards into the Barents Sea.
Publisher
IWC
Publication Year
2024
Abstract
As part of a six-year program over the period 2020-2025 with the aim to get a new estimate of minke whale abundance in the Northeast Atlantic in a timely manner regarding RMP requirements, the intention was to cover the Small Management Area EB, the Barents Sea, in summer 2022. Access to Russian EEZ was however denied so major changes had to be done to the survey strategy and a large part of the area remained uncovered. The realised coverage of the Norwegian EEZ of the EB area was supplemented with adjacent survey activity to provide more data on distributional knowledge. About 4,168 nautical miles of primary search effort was conducted within the survey blocks. The most common species sighted were minke whale, fin whale, humpback whale, white-beaked dolphin, and harbour porpoise. When compared to earlier surveys which have covered this region the sighting rates of minke and fin whales in the area west of Spitsbergen have apparently decreased while southern and coastal presence have increased. The status for humpback whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises seems to be like observations in previous surveys.