NESP MaC Project 1.26 - Relative abundance of the ‘western’ population of southern right whales from an aerial survey off southern Australia
This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub bridging study - "A photo-identification study of southern right whales to update aggregation area classification in the southwest of Australia". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.
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Aerial surveys of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) have been conducted across the southern Australian coast from Perth (W.A.) to Ceduna (S.A.) since 1993, as part of a long-term program to monitor the recovery, and inform the Conservation Management Plan (2011-2021), for this Endangered species (under the EPBC Act). The 2020 aerial survey recorded substantially lower numbers of whales than in the previous 13 years, and the lowest number of non-calving whales since the program started. An aerial survey conducted by this project in August 2021 will provide a relative estimate of annual population size for determining longer term population trends and contribute to determining if 2020 was an anomalous year or an indicator of some longer-term change to recent recovery rates and the female breeding cycle.
Outputs
• Aerial whale survey data (counts by size class, number, and location) - 2021-22 season [dataset]
• Individual whale photo-identification data - 2021-22 season [imagery - published to ARWPIC]
• Final technical report with analysed data, including a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2021-03-01
Resource provider
- Purpose
- To contribute to informing the Australian Government's Conservation Management Plan for southern right whales (2011-21), and in particular provide further information on population trends and the extent to which 2020 might be considered an anomalous year.
- Credit
- Joshua Smith (Murdoch University), Mike Double (Australian Antarctic Division), Nat Kelly(Australian Antarctic Division), Karen Evans (CSIRO)
- Credit
- National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub
- Credit
- Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE), Australian Government
- Credit
- In addition to NESP (DAWE) funding, this project is matched by an equivalent amount of in-kind support and co-investment from project partners and collaborators.
- Status
- Completed
Principal investigator
- Topic category
-
- Biota
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2021-09-01 2022-06-30
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Keywords (dataSource)
-
- National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub
- Keywords (Theme)
-
- aerial survey
- photo-identification
- southern right whale
- endangered
- threatened species
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The data collections described in this record are funded by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) through the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub.
Resource constraints
- Linkage
-
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png
License Graphic
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Website
-
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License Text
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/b85b2c7d-4631-477a-9217-2cae65f9cf0a
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
- Parent metadata
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Field session
- Name
- MaC Hub Project 1.26
- Metadata linkage
-
https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/b85b2c7d-4631-477a-9217-2cae65f9cf0a
Point of truth URL of this metadata record
- Date info (Creation)
- 2022-03-01T12:00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2023-06-04T21:46:38
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-3:2018