Report of the Cook Inlet beluga whale abundance estimation workshop

In addition to the two types of aerial surveys, in 2017, the MML initiated a Cook Inlet beluga photo-identification project using overhead photos taken from an Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS). Preliminary analyses indicate these data are also sufficient to support relatively precise abundance estimates using closed population mark-recapture models. With multiple methods now available for estimating the abundance and trends of this population, a workshop was held to review all three methods. The main focus of the workshop was to review the potential biases of each method, and whether the biases can be corrected by further studies, with a view to understanding which method(s) may be best for estimating absolute abundance and/or relative trends in the population.