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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Megafauna
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1422907

Using satellite imagery to estimate abundance of Cumberland Sound beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in 2021

Provisionally accepted
Bryanna A. Sherbo Bryanna A. Sherbo 1*Amanda Belanger Amanda Belanger 1,2Bertrand Charry Bertrand Charry 3Cortney A. Watt Cortney A. Watt 1,2*
  • 1 Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Ottawa, Canada
  • 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
  • 3 Whale Seeker, Montreal, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The Cumberland Sound beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) population inhabits Cumberland Sound on the southeast side of Baffin Island, Nunavut. The population is listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act. The last abundance estimate from an aerial survey was estimated at 1,381 (95% CI: 1,270-1,502) beluga whales in 2017 for an area covering 12,485 km 2 . Since then, satellite imagery has been used as a remotely based non-invasive method to monitor these whales. Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery covering 9,690 km² of water was collected from Cumberland Sound from August 30 to September 7, 2021, during the ice free season. Readers with previous imagery analysis experience analyzed the images and identified 704 certain detections. Abundance estimates were corrected for availability bias for whales that were too deep to be detected in the imagery (>2m). We present a total estimate of 1,690 (CV = 0.16; 95% CI: 1,241-2,301) beluga whales in Cumberland Sound (22,663 km 2 ). This estimate covers a larger area and estimates a higher abundance than the 2017 aerial survey. Regular population abundance assessments are essential for understanding population dynamics and trends and we have shown here that satellite imagery is a comparable method to aerial surveys for estimating abundance.

    Keywords: Abundance estimation, Imagery analysis, Whale Detection, Very high resolution satellite imagery, worldview

    Received: 25 Apr 2024; Accepted: 07 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sherbo, Belanger, Charry and Watt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Bryanna A. Sherbo, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Ottawa, Canada
    Cortney A. Watt, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Ottawa, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.