Subseasonal forecasts provide a powerful tool for protecting whales

Better forecasts may improve management of marine mammals such as the humpback whale. Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Effective management of marine mammal populations threatened by man-made impacts is particularly challenging for marine environments. Not only are these environments highly dynamic and difficult to observe, previous static management approaches have proven problematic or ineffective in marine environments, particularly for highly migratory species or for species undergoing distributional shifts due to climate change. Adaptive approaches are needed to effectively manage dynamic marine systems, and ecological forecasts can help managers anticipate when and where conservation issues are likely to arise in the future.

In a new Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment article, authors Julia Stepanuk, Hyemi Kim, Janet Nye, Jason Roberts, Pat Halpin, Debra Palka, D Ann Pabst, William McLellan, Susan Barco, and Lesley Thorne demonstrate the usefulness of environmental forecasts for managing marine mammals by integrating species distribution models with subseasonal forecasts to predict the arrival of migratory humpback whales at foraging grounds in the Northeast US.

Read more at the link below.