NESP MaC Project 3.15 - Informing southern right whale management through continued monitoring, determination of aggregation areas and development of approaches to increase data flow efficiencies and utility

Research Project

Researchers: Dr. Chandra Salgado Kent (Principal investigator, Point of contact) ,  Dr. Chandra Salgado Kent (Principal investigator, Point of contact) ,  Evans, Karen (Principal investigator, Point of contact) ,  Evans, Karen (Principal investigator, Point of contact) ,  Moller, Luciana (Principal investigator, Point of contact)
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Brief description This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Research Plan 2023 project "Informing southern right whale management through continued monitoring, determination of aggregation areas and development of approaches to increase data flow efficiencies and utility". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata. -------------------- This project will deliver priority information on southern right whales to address key knowledge gaps through: (i) updating long-term population abundance trends via aerial surveys of the western population and testing of platforms for improving photo-identification data flow efficiencies; (ii) the collection and utilisation of photos of the western population to identify biologically important reproductive areas and inform the estimation of population parameters;(iii) development of integrative methods for combining opportunistic and more formally collected observations, to expand the utility of datasets and (iv) collection of movement and genetic data to assess the connectivity and population identity of whales at the boundary of the eastern and western subpopulations. It will also conduct a consultative process for prioritising future work for informing future NESP work. Outputs • Updated southern right whale population assessments [dataset] • Individual whale photo-identifications in aggregation areas [image catalogue] • Updated SPRAT and BIA distributions [dataset] • Whale movement tracking [dataset] • Genetic data (for estimates of population connectivity) [dataset] • Final project report [written]

Lineage Maintenance and Update Frequency: asNeeded

Notes Credit
Joshua Smith (Murdoch University), Andy Townsend (ARWPIC), Claire Charlton (Current Environmental), Chandra Salgado Kent (ECU), Chris Burton (Western Whale Research), Kirsty Alexander (South Coast Cetaceans), Mandy Watson (WA DELWP), Karen Evans (CSIRO), David Peel (CSIRO), Scott Foster (CSIRO), Toby Patterson (CSIRO), Luciana Moller (Flinders Uni), Guido Parra (Flinders Uni)

Notes Credit
National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub

Notes Credit
Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Australian Government

Notes Credit
In addition to NESP (DCCEEW) funding, this project is matched by an equivalent amount of in-kind support and co-investment from project partners and collaborators.

Notes Purpose
To address key knowledge gaps on southern right whales.

Data time period: 2023-03-01 to 2025-07-31

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