Beaufort Sea beluga whales tagged, ready to be tracked on Facebook

More than a dozen beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea have been tagged with tracking devices and their movements can be followed on Facebook.

This is the first time belugas in the Beaufort Sea havebeen tagged since 2005. The tracking project is a joint effort between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the Fisheries Joint Management Committee and the Inuvialuit Game Council.

We are actually seeing a little dot for every time a transmission goes from a surface whale to the satellite.- Shannon MacPhee, biologist

"It's really community driven," said Shannon MacPhee, a biologist with the DFO. "The research questions came out of a big community engagement event that we had called the Beluga Summit back in February2016."

She says coastal communities originally wanted belugas to be tagged to better understand where they moveand why they were going to certain places.

MacPheesaid there was a team of around 20 people who were out at the camp onHendricksonIsland, where people inTuktoyaktuktraditionally harvest their whales.

"What was really interesting for me to see was that it takes a large amount of people to tag a beluga whale," she said.

The program started on July 3. By July 13, 14 whales had been tagged.

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In total, three different types of tags were used including a traditional "backpack" style tag, that collects detailed location information as well as the dive profile of the whales.

"What was new this year about those tags is that they not only use satellite telemetry but they'll give us the GPS co-ordinates of the whale, so we are getting very detailed information on [their] positions," said MacPhee.

Public invited to track whales on Facebook

For those who are interested in tracking the movement of the beluga whales, they can join the Beaufort Sea Beluga Facebook group.

MacPhee says the idea behind the Facebook group is for the public to feel like they are part of the process.

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As of July 27, almost200 people had joined the group. They are able to look at maps posted by the researchers showing recentbelugamigration routes.

"What we are looking at is a map on Google Earth and we are receiving the raw location data from the satellite, and we are actually seeing a little dot for every time a transmission goes from a surface whale to the satellite," said MacPhee.

Most of the tags will last through the fall but some will last throughout the winter, so they can get a better understanding of where some of the belugas travel in the spring.

Strange travels

Recently, about 50 belugas came down the Schooner Channel near Aklavik, an abnormal route for so many to take.

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John Noksana Jr., vice-chair for the Fisheries Joint Management Committee, says this tagging will give them a better understanding of what these whales are doing.

"I mean we can protect them from industry, tourism and shipping just to make sure they are taken care of," said Noksana.

He says whaling is vital to every community in the region.

He hopes that with the data they get, they can create exclusion areas or speed limits for ships in particular places that the belugas frequent.

Next year, there will be another round of tagging.