Project Description

A GIS analysis of the seasonal geographic ranges of various marine mammals and fishes will be undertaken to address various questions inherent to the use of marine protected areas in the Bering Sea in conservation and management. This approach will be used to define the portion of the Bering Sea ecosystem that should be set aside in marine protected areas, how protected areas can be established seasonally and where they can be effectively located. The use of information concerning individual resources species (combined with that of their consumers) will be used to define optimal fishing grounds/seasons and recommend spatial/temporal fishery closures pertinent to individual resource species. The primary focus, from a single-species point of view, will be defining marine protected areas that would involve a complete consideration of the northern fur seal, its prey species, and ecosystem in view of the declining status of this species.

Issues & Justification

The use of marine protected areas has been suggested as an important tool in conservation and management involving marine resources just as parks and preserves have been used in terrestrial systems. A great deal of effort has gone into the study of such an approach and a number of marine protected areas have been established world-wide. Given its prominence in current conservation thinking, it is important that it be treated within the folds of systemic management to fully account for the complexity of the systems involved. The complexity of ecosystems has eluded full consideration in conventional analyses and debates concerning the use of marine protected areas. The work in this project will follow the pattern of other applications of systemic management to achieve a full consideration of the all of the factors involved.

The declining trends in the fur seal population of the Pribilof Islands place special emphasis on the use of marine protected areas as a management tool. The endangered status of the Steller sea lion is also to be considered and adds importance to taking a systemic view of their interactions and all of the relationships involved in the ways these species interact with each other and the other species of their ecosystems.

Goals

• To use empirical information of geographic ranges of predator and prey to provide guidance on seasonal location and size of marine protected areas for the Bering Sea so as to adhere to the general principles of management.
• Publish the results of our findings in the peer reviewed literature.

Methods

GIS analysis of the geographic ranges of marine mammals of the Bering Sea will be used to define patterns such as the portion of the ecosystem unoccupied each season to address the question of how much of the Bering Sea should be set aside seasonally in marine protected areas, MPAs. Subdivision of the Bering Sea into grids will allow for similar questions to be addressed at a smaller scale and to locate advisable MPAs. Subdivisions corresponding to the seasonal geographic ranges of both competing species and prey species will allow for single-species application of protected areas on a seasonal basis with more ecological relevance to the resulting management advice.