GLOBAL REVIEW OF MONODONTIDS REPORT 13-16 March 2017 © North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission Please cite this report as: NAMMCO (2018) Report of the NAMMCO Global Review of Monodontids. 13-16 March 2017, Hillerød, Denmark, Available at https://nammco.no/topics/sc-working-group-reports/ DISCLAIMER: The content of this report contains the view of the Symposium Expert Group and do not necessarily represent the views of the NAMMCO Scientific Committee or Council. NAMMCO Scientific Committee reviewed the draft report at its next meeting in November 2017 and NAMMCO Council was presented with the final report and the review results at its 26th meeting in March 2018. NAMMCO Postbox 6453, Sykehusveien 21-23, N-9294 Tromsø, Norway, +47 77687371, [email protected], www.nammco.no, www.facebook.com/nammco.no Report NAMMCO Global Review of Monodontids March 2017 Contents 1. WELCOME AND MEETING INFORMATION .............................................................................................. 5 2. CAFF/CBMP STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT ............................................. 7 3. STOCK DEFINITION .................................................................................................................................. 8 4. BELUGAS ................................................................................................................................................... 9 4.1 Sakhalin-Amur ................................................................................................................................. 11 4.2 Ulbansky .......................................................................................................................................... 12 4.3 Tugursky .......................................................................................................................................... 12 4.4 Udskaya ............................................................................................................................................ 13 4.5 Shelikhov ......................................................................................................................................... 14 4.6 Anadyr .............................................................................................................................................. 14 4.7 Cook Inlet ......................................................................................................................................... 15 4.8 Eastern Bering Sea ........................................................................................................................... 17 4.9 Bristol Bay ....................................................................................................................................... 17 4.10 Eastern Chukchi Sea ........................................................................................................................ 18 4.11 Eastern Beaufort Sea ........................................................................................................................ 19 4.12 Eastern High Arctic – Baffin Bay (Somerset Island) and West Greenland ..................................... 21 4.13 Western Hudson Bay ....................................................................................................................... 22 4.14 James Bay ........................................................................................................................................ 23 4.15 Eastern Hudson Bay ......................................................................................................................... 23 4.16 Ungava Bay ...................................................................................................................................... 25 4.17 Cumberland Sound ........................................................................................................................... 25 4.18 St Lawrence Estuary ........................................................................................................................ 26 4.19 Southwest Greenland ....................................................................................................................... 27 4.20 Svalbard ........................................................................................................................................... 28 4.21 Barents-Kara-Laptev Seas ................................................................................................................ 29 4.22 White Sea ......................................................................................................................................... 29 5. NARWHALS ...................................................................................................................................... 30 5.1 Somerset Island ................................................................................................................................ 31 5.2 Jones Sound...................................................................................................................................... 33 5.3 Smith Sound ..................................................................................................................................... 33 5.4 Admiralty Inlet ................................................................................................................................. 34 5.5 Eclipse Sound ................................................................................................................................... 35 5.6 Inglefield Bredning .......................................................................................................................... 36 5.7 Melville Bay ..................................................................................................................................... 37 5.8 Eastern Baffin Island ........................................................................................................................ 37 5.9 Northern Hudson Bay ...................................................................................................................... 38 3 Report NAMMCO Global Review of Monodontids March 2017 5.10 East Greenland ................................................................................................................................. 39 5.11 Northeast Greenland ........................................................................................................................ 40 5.12 Svalbard-Northwest Russian Arctic ................................................................................................. 40 6. BELUGAS AND NARWHALS: GLOBAL AND REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES ............................... 42 7. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND COOPERATION (BELUGAS AND NARWHALS) ................. 48 8. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 50 STOCK DISTRIBUTION MAPS ......................................................................................................................... 62 SUMMARY TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... 64 PARTICIPANT LIST ......................................................................................................................................... 79 AGENDA AND PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE ....................................................................................................... 80 4 NAMMCO Global Review of Monodontids 13-16 March 2017, Hillerød Denmark Report 1. WELCOME AND MEETING INFORMATION 1.1 Introduction Jill Prewitt, Scientific Secretary of NAMMCO, welcomed the participants (Appendix 1) to Hillerød and expressed the satisfaction of NAMMCO that this long-awaited review was taking place. She conveyed the deep regrets of the chair of the Planning Group, Arne Bjørge (IMR, Norway), who was not able to attend the meeting due to health issues, and thanked Rod Hobbs, the vice-chair, for agreeing to step in. She briefly introduced NAMMCO, summarized background for the Global Review, and acknowledged Christina Lockyer, the former NAMMCO General Secretary, for her efforts to launch this Global Review. She also thanked the other members of the Planning Group (Barry, Bjørge, Desportes, Ferguson, Guldborg-Hansen, Hobbs, Marcoux, Reeves, Shpak, Suydam) and noted that the Arctic Council’s Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) biodiversity working group had joined the effort to organise the review. Although Tom Barry (CAFF Secretariat) was unable to participate, his colleague Tom Christensen, co-chair of CAFFs Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP), attended. She also thanked the funders who made the Global Review possible, primarily NAMMCO, the Government of Greenland, Shell Oil and the US Marine Mammal Commission. 1.2 Chair’s welcome Hobbs, the meeting Chair, welcomed the participants and noted that the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC’s) Scientific Committee had reviewed the status of belugas and narwhals in 1992 (IWC 1993) and conducted a more thorough updated review of beluga stocks in 1999 (IWC 2000). Additionally, the NAMMCO Scientific Committee’s Working Group on the Population Status of Beluga and Narwhal in the North Atlantic carried out an extensive review in 1999 (NAMMCO 2000). A significant amount of new information