SCANS IV survey, July 2022

Major international survey started end of June to determine the population size and distribution of cetaceans in the NE Atlantic waters

The results of SCANS-IV will be used to optimize management for cetacean conservation. These animals can be strongly influenced by human activities at sea, causing for instance underwater noise, bycatch or pollution. The previous SCANS surveys showed that roughly one and a half million cetaceans live in the surveyed area.

SCANS_IV Total Effort by aerial survey (grey already surveyed)

 

  • From Norway to southern Spain

The study area extends from Norway to southern Spain, extending to the offshore waters west of Scotland. The work will be carried out with eight small aircrafts, all manned by a team of experienced observers, from the end of June to the end of July 2022. In addition, the far offshore waters will be surveyed from a ship; in 2022 this concerns the Bay of Biscay and, in 2023, the areas west of Scotland. For a complete picture, a similar survey takes place in Irish waters, the ObSERVE programme running from 021-2022.

  • Counting cetaceans from an airplane

The aerial surveys will be conducted in about 40 sub-areas. A team of three observers is present on each airplane. Two of them search from so-called bubble windows, giving them an unobstructed view of the sea surface below the plane. The third observer, the data recorder, enters all the data that the observers relay via the comm-system.

SCANS set standards

The SCANS project is internationally recognised for its excellence in data collection and analysis standards. The project exemplifies coordination between EU Member States and neighbouring countries to implement joint cetacean monitoring programmes. This facilitates the delivery of coherent and consistent assessments for cetacean poppulations, as required by European Marine Directives as well as regional Sea Conventions, such as OSPAR and HELCOM.

Training completed

In May 2022, representatives of the participating countries coordinated the details of the study in a workshop in La Rochelle, France. New software and new equipment were also tested during flight simulations, in order to optimize them. The findings of the workshop were included in the final research protocol. So that on June 27, all eight planes can take off to conduct the SCANS-IV study. Weather-permitting!

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Project coordinator

Dr. Anita Gilles, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany  anita.gilles@tiho-hannover.de 

 Project partners and contacts

University of St Andrews, United Kingdom (Philipp Hammond,  psh2@st-andrews.ac.uk )

Joint Nature Conservation Committee, United Kingdom (Nikki Taylor,  Nikki.taylor@jncc.gov.uk )

Wageningen Marine Research, Netherlands (Steve Geelhoed,  steve.geelhoed@wur.nl )

Aarhus University, Denmark (Signe Sveegaard,  ssv@ecos.au.dk )

Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden (Julia Carlström,  Julia.Carlstrom@nrm.se )

La Rochelle University, France (Matthieu Authier matthieu.authier@univ-lr.fr & Sophie Laran,  sophie.laran@univ-lr.fr )

Instituto Español de Oceanografia, Spain (Camilo Saveedra,  camilo.saavedra@ieo.es )

University of Aveiro, CESAM - Centre of Environmental and Marine Studies and Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Portugal (Hélder Araújo, helder.araujo@socpvs.org and Marina Sequeira, marina.sequeira@icnf.pt)