Bering Sea wintering grounds of beluga whales, 2006, Hobbs, R.

The intent of this project was to identify and define the winter habitat of beluga whales in the Bering Sea and determine
which stocks of whales were moving along the coast of the Chukotka Peninsula in the fall. In November-December 2003 and
October-November 2004 field projects were conducted in an area of Lavrentia Bay where belugas have regularly occurred in
the weeks before ice formation. In 2003 and 2004, beluga did not enter the study area and were not reported in other parts
of the bay. Local knowledge indicated that the sequence of ice formation had recently changed with ice forming in the bay prior
to ice formation in the Bering Strait rather than the other way around and the beluga had no reason to enter the bay. At this
same time the Canadian collaborators in this project succeeded in attaching tags to whales from this same population in July
that lasted through the winter and in one case for over 400 days. With the increased tag longevity there was no need to continue
trying to capture beluga in Lavrentia Bay during the fall. Consequently the project was refocused to capture beluga in the Anadyr
River during the summer, and develop a tag that could be deployed from the ice edge during the winter in Lavrentia Bay when captures
with a net are not possible. To this end a field project was conducted in late August 2005. Unfortunately the salmon runs that bring
beluga near shore in August ended during the first week of this field project and there were no opportunities to capture whales.
A second field project was planned for early August 2006 during which 1 whale was caught and a transmitter attached which continues
to transmit as of the writing of this report. During weather days in the 2004 and 2005 field seasons harpoon deployment systems were
developed, to date no opportunities to attach these to belugas have occurred. A field season in the Anadyr River is planned for August
2007 to attach the remaining transmitters, including trials of the harpoon attachment system. These datasets were archived as part of the North Pacific Research Board legacy project recovery effort undertaken by Axiom Data Science and NPRB in 2025. The goal of the recovery effort was to assess the NPRB-funded data projects from 2002 to 2014 and archive final data packages that were ready for publication to increase long-term accessibility and discoverability. Data packages were archived as is given limited funding and resources.