SWIMM: Saving Whales with Innovative Monitoring and Mitigation

The 2017 North Atlantic right whale (NARW) mortality crisis required immediate, broad-sweeping actions tomitigate lethal risk from vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglement. The actions appear successful atconsiderable cost to government, industry and local economies. Monitoring, policy and management needs tobe more adaptable to new knowledge on NARW presence and distribution in Canada to prevent extinction andprotect Canadian market access. We propose research that advances state-of-the-art NARW assessment andmonitoring technology to quantify risks and develop adaptive, sustainable solutions to protect the whales in achanging ocean. We will pursue four research themes. The 1st focuses low-cost, real-time passive acousticmonitoring (PAM) of the whales using autonomous underwater gliders. The 2nd will identify environmentaland anthropogenic causes and consequences of habitat variability. The 3rd will better quantify whale health andenvironmental contaminants. The 4th assess vessel strike and fishing gear risk and mitigation options,including the development and dissemination of near real-time risk estimates to inform dynamic and targetedrisk mitigation. This vigorous multidisciplinary program is made possible through collaborations with 20+organizations from all sectors in Canada and internationally. The program is retrospective in assessing theefficacy of previous and existing risk-mitigation strategies, timely in ensuring decision-makers have the bestinformation regarding current regulations, and forward-looking by proposing dynamic, data-driven solutionsthat are mindful of economic and conservation goals. The technologies and expertise developed through ourresearch will help solidify Canada's role as a global leader in whale research and ocean technology, whiletraining the next generation of young scientists. Referees should recognize that in addition to D Barclay(co-PI), the majority of the proposal was written by a bright future generation: Dr K Davies, Dr J van derHoop, H Johnson, M Carr and D Durette-Morin.