UC Santa Cruz

We use the Whale Safe initiative as a case study to investigate the efficacy of species distribution models (SDMs) for dynamic ocean management in a relatively data-rich context. This program combines SDMs, passive acoustic monitoring and opportunistic sightings data to help reduce whale-ship collisions off California, USA. Blue whale SDM predictions were significantly correlated with the in situ observations of whale presence (sightings and passive acoustic detections), suggesting that the model is a reliable source for indicating blue whale presence. We also demonstrated from this multiyear program the value of integrating multiple sources of inference (sightings, acoustics and SDMs) for achieving dynamic management. The results indicated the potential benefit of using validated SDMs in less data-rich regions to support dynamic ocean management when in situ real-time data sources are sporadic or unavailable.