Arctic GIS Workshop Poster Abstract

22-24 January 2001
Bell Harbor International Conference Center
Seattle, Washington

Narwhals in the Ice: Migration Tracking in GIS

Kristin L. Laidre¹, Mads Peter Heide-Jorgensen², Rune Dietz³, Pierre Richard⁴, and Rod Hobbs^2
1 Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Box 355020, Seattle, Washington 98195
² National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98115
³ National Environmental Research Institute, Frederiksborgvej 399, Postbox 358, DK-4000, Roskilde, Denmark
⁴ Arctic Research Division, Department of Fisheries & Oceans, 501 University Crescent, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N6, Canada

The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) is an ice-associated cetacean that inhabits Arctic seas bordering the Atlantic Ocean. In the summer months, narwhals visit inshore bays and fjords in the Canadian archipelago and Greenland. In the autumn, upon the formation of fast ice, narwhals are forced to move south out of these regions and spend the winter in areas covered by dense offshore pack ice. The use of satellite telemetry has made it possible to monitor the movements and dive behavior of narwhals during their fall migration. Between 1993 and 2000, 35 narwhals were instrumented with satellite-linked radio transmitters in Canada and Greenland. Their daily movements were monitored using Service ARGOS. The geographic locations from the satellite tags were imported into the Geographic Information System ArcView" and movement paths were analyzed for each whale using the Animal Movement Extension. To date, results show narwhals take at least three different paths to their wintering grounds in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, with maximum travel distances of over 5,000 km in a 3-month period. We are currently using ARC/INFO" GRID and ArcView" to determine seasonal home range patterns and responses to sea ice formation, prey concentration, and sea surface temperature changes. We hypothesize narwhal movements are independent of sea ice conditions because of their preference to winter in the dense pack ice (>9/10ths). We plan to test this hypothesis by spatially correlating high-resolution sea ice images with seasonal movement of narwhals.