PURPOSE:

Eastern Beaufort Sea beluga whales form one of the largest summering aggregations of the species in the Mackenzie Estuary. In 2010, the Tarium Niryutait Marine Protected Area (TNMPA) was designated to protect beluga whales and their habitats As a part of ongoing ecological monitoring efforts in the TN MPA, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) was implemented in 2011 to act as continuous monitoring method, filling the temporal gaps associated with historical aerial surveys. Beginning in 2014, PAM effort increased each year, and oceanographic sensors were added to moorings to (1) better understand oceanographic conditions within the TN MPA and (2) examine the environmental parameters that drive beluga movement and habitat use patterns within the estuary. Several studies using this dataset have been completed, and others are ongoing. However, much more can be done with the acoustic and environmental data. The purpose of this report is to outline deployment methods and instrument settings for moorings deployed from 2014-2022 to support the full use of the data collected.

DESCRIPTION:

Each summer, Eastern Beaufort Sea beluga whales form one of the largest aggregations of the species in the Mackenzie Estuary. In 2010, the Tarium Niryutait Marine Protected Area (TNMPA) was designated in the estuary to protect beluga whales and their habitats. As a part of ongoing ecological monitoring efforts in the TN MPA, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) was implemented in 2011 to act as continuous monitoring method, filling the temporal gaps associated with historical aerial surveys. Beginning in 2014, PAM effort increased each year, and oceanographic sensors were added to each PAM mooring to (1) better understand oceanographic conditions (i.e., temperature, salinity, turbidity, and wave conditions) within the TN MPA and (2) to examine the environmental parameters that drive beluga movement and habitat use patterns within the estuary. Moorings have been deployed with varying configurations of oceanographic sensors in Kugmallit Bay since 2015 (2015-2022), but typically record water temperature, salinity, depth, and wave conditions. In 2018, the program was expanded to the Niaqunnaq parcel of the MPA (Shallow Bay) (2018-2022), and in 2021 it was expanded again to the Okeevik parcel of the MPA (2021-2022). These observatories have provided new knowledge about drivers of beluga habitat use in the TN MPA, in particular in Kittigaryuit, but more recently in Niaqunnaq and Okeevik.