Surveying for marine mammals in the Beaufort Sea

This time last year I was on standby. I was awaiting the call to head north to Alaska to join my aerial survey team. This year I am not on standby because I am not heading north and I am more than a little melancholy about it. Alaska, the Arctic has a way of getting under your skin. I’m really not sure why this happens, especially as I am always stationed in Prudhoe Bay – the largest oil field in the US. Instead I am spending the summer at my desk working to finish my thesis, and wondering what I would have seen had we been up there flying surveys this summer.

Last year, in late August, after about 6 weeks of standby, I finally found myself making the trek to Alaska’s north coast, to participate in aerial survey work in the Beaufort Sea.  This time I was co-leading an aerial survey team of Protected Species Observers (PSOs) whose purpose was to monitor and record marine mammals in the vicinity of drilling operations in the Beaufort Sea.

This work provides me with valuable field and professional leadership skills as well as a means to fund my way through my PhD. Although this was my third field season in the Arctic, I know that no two seasons are ever the same; there are always new learning experiences to ensure that surveys are successful and good data is collected.  But most of all there are always new sighting experiences to remember, whether it be a breaching bowhead or evidence of a recent polar bear kill on the ice.

Marine mammal aerial surveys

I was based in Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay, perched on Alaska’s North Slope. With its gravel roads and trucks, it is an industrial hive serving the largest oil field in the US, floating on gravel pads atop the Arctic tundra. This is not your typical remote field work experience. The real experience begins when I board the survey plane, a sturdy de Havilland Twin Otter, specifically outfitted with specialized bubble windows for the purpose of marine mammal surveys.  We fly a series of pre-determined transects perpendicular to the coast recording all marine mammals that we see, but we are particularly interested in seeing  bowhead whales.

Deadhorse, Alaska

As observers we continually scan the water searching for marine mammals and noting environmental conditions. In the Beaufort Sea, the species that are most often recorded are bowhead and beluga whales, bearded and ringed seals, and polar bears. When an animal is sighted on transect, we record   relevant details (“one adult bowhead, swimming at medium speed, travelling in a 10 o’clock direction”) and take an angle measurement to allow its exact position to be calculated. On some transects we may see a lot, while on others we not see anything at all. We survey for almost 5 hours –limited by the fuel capacity of our survey plane.

After our surveys we return to our base in Deadhorse for an evening of data entry and report writing.  We never know when we will be able to survey next due to the changeable nature of the weather on the slope. But we always hope that conditions will remain clear and the winds calm to allow surveys the following day.

The Beaufort Sea

My PhD research focuses on how bowhead behavioural responses to industry operations influence the ability of aerial observers to detect whales; and how this may impact density estimates of whales in the vicinity of offshore industry activities. Working on these surveys provides me with first-hand experience and a better understanding of the data that I use in my research.

Deadhorse, blanketed by snow

Our surveys continued through September and October, coming to an end in early November. The colors of the tundra changed as summer advanced into autumn and autumn into winter.  Ice formed over the ocean and the bowhead migration had all but passed through our survey area.  Daylight hours waned and storms blew through bringing snow that blanketed Deadhorse; the survey season ended for another year and I headed back to BC to continue with my studies and wonder if I would be heading north again this year. 

As it turned out industry activities in the Beaufort Sea were scaled back this year and there was no requirement for an aerial survey monitoring crew. My thesis will probably be thankful, but I will still miss flying out over the tundra, watching the colors change as the season progresses and as ever catching a glimpse of the migrating bowhead whale.

Shell, Alaska produced a pamphlet on marine mammal research in the Alaskan Arctic -includes our aerial survey work

Marine Mammals of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas