Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) aerial survey soars to estimate the beluga whale population in James Bay and eastern Hudson Bay.
The entire James Bay area was surveyed from July 18 to 26. Eastern Hudson Bay is now being surveyed until Sept. 15. Mushkegowuk Council plans to use the survey results to create a marine conservation area in western James Bay.
“It's the ministerial responsibility of DFO to assess the stocks of the different marine mammal and fish populations across Canada,” said Caroline Sauvé, a biologist with DFO.
“This is the ninth survey covering the same area using the same protocol since 1985, and what we're trying to do is get some comparable data as time goes to build up a time series and follow the trend of those populations.”
According to Sauvé, the survey is done at 1,000 feet of altitude in a four-seater plane flying straight lines from one coast to another.
“There’s a pilot and three observers looking down and scanning the water for belugas, but we also record every marine mammal that we see, such as seals, walruses, and larger whales,” she said.
“We have voice recorders in the plane, so we indicate the time of the observation and other measurements like the vertical angle of the sighting. So with triangulation, we can calculate the exact location, or the perpendicular distance, from the plane of the sighting and we merge that with the GPS track and we can get the exact location of the animals.”
How long they’re out surveying for depends on weather conditions, Sauvé said. However, if conditions are good, they fly for about 12 hours a day.
The number of belugas they see can substantially vary, Sauvé said.
“We can be flying many lines in a day and not see any or just see one or two scattered individuals. But then in other places where density is really high, we can count more than 100 in a single survey line. So we can see many hundreds in a day sometimes,” she said.
When belugas are full grown, males are about 3.5 metres long while females are about 3.3 metres long, Sauvé said.
Surveying from July to September is crucial since belugas are migratory species, she said. In the wintertime they migrate, but they “usually go back to the same summering grounds each year.” she said.
“So there's site fidelity to the summering grounds where they were born or where their mother brought them. So we try counting the animals during summer while they're aggregated in their summering populations and not all mixed together,” she said.
The survey of the James Bay area “went extremely well,” Sauvé said.
“When we fly this kind of survey, what we're hoping for is to cover the area as quickly as we can to minimize as much movement of animals as we can. So we're really happy about the short duration of the survey in James Bay this year. It’s a large area and it's difficult to cover it and sometimes the weather doesn't collaborate,” she said.
“We saw hundreds of animals. We haven't compiled all the data yet. We're still listening to our recordings. I expect that we will have an updated abundance for the area sometime in the late spring after peer review and everything.”
If there is a substantially large group of belugas that observers are unable to give an estimated count for, they will fly back to take a photo of the group, but Sauvé said this only happens on very rare occasions.
Tracking belugas and other marine mammals is vital, she said.
“There's different populations in Canada and each of them have a different conservation status. In James Bay the population is quite healthy. It was increasing before 2011, but since 2011, it's been a stable population that's quite high,” she said.
The last survey completed in 2021 shows that at the time there were just over 16,000 belugas in James Bay, Sauvé said.
“We like to compare populations that do well, with other populations that have conservation concerns. So, in eastern Hudson Bay the population is much lower. It's been decreasing three per cent per year since 2015,” she said.
The population in James Bay is so healthy because Cree communities don’t harvest belugas, Sauvé said.
“However, Inuit communities along eastern Hudson Bay do, so it's important, mostly for the populations that are of conservation concern, to make sure that we can provide the best scientific advice to communities and to wildlife boards,” she said.
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Sauvé made it clear the DFO isn’t part of Mushekowuk Council’s plans to create the marine conservation area.
“It’s not related to DFO in any means. And that's an important nuance, because we're not there to try and design a zone where we would apply regulations or anything. I know that Mushkegowuk Council is planning to do a conservation area in the area of western James Bay, but I’m not aware of the development,” she said.
“For them, it's important information about what's in their waters. So, it's interesting for them, and I have no idea how they will use it or not to make decisions about their initiative, but that's not our initiative. What we do is provide updated, abundant population trends and we share it with communities.”
Once the survey results are complete, they will be widely shared, Sauvé said. The data is used to produce a document for the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS). It will also be shared with the Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board (NMRWB), Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board (EMRWB) and Mushkegowuk Council, along with other communities and organizations.
