Science Advisory Report 2016/025

Updated Genetic Mixture Analysis of Nunavik Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) harvests

Summary

• Nunavik hunters harvest beluga from a mixture of stocks currently identified as Western Hudson Bay (WHB), Eastern Hudson Bay (EHB), as well as other non-identified stocks. Animals are also harvested in Ungava Bay, which is believed to contain its own summer stock, but for which no current genetic information is available.
• The 2014-2016 Nunavik beluga harvest management relies on estimating proportion of EHB beluga harvested in newly-defined harvesting areas and seasons.
• Using 1,254 harvest samples collected from 1982 to 2013, the proportions of EHB beluga taken by Nunavik communities and in Sanikiluaq (Nunavut) were estimated with a Genetic Mixture Analysis. These updated analyses confirm that the proportion of EHB beluga in the harvest varies spatially and seasonally.
• Proportions of EHB beluga in well-sampled areas in Hudson Strait remained consistent with previous estimates (with reduced uncertainty). The proportion of EHB beluga in Hudson Strait harvest was 11.7% in the spring (May – August) and 23.6% in the fall (September – January).
• Hunts in the northeastern Hudson Bay in spring and Ungava Bay in fall yielded too few samples to provide meaningful estimates of the proportion of EHB animals in the harvest.
• The updated proportion of EHB beluga harvested in the Belcher Islands (Nunavut) was 2.8% in spring (April 1 – June 30), and 6.5% if spring was extended by two weeks (April 1-14 July). The proportion was 30.6% in summer (July 1 – September 30) and 0% in fall, which confirms that the voluntary summer hunt closure established by the community of Sanikiluaq is an efficient approach to protect the EHB stock. The samples available from July and August, together with expert knowledge, suggest that extending the spring hunt into July may increase the probability of taking EHB beluga. However, this is based on a limited number of samples and so should be interpreted with caution.
• The majority of samples obtained from winter ice entrapments around the Belcher Islands were attributed to the EHB stock. It is unknown whether some EHB beluga remain in southern Hudson Bay in winter, or if the sampled beluga belong to separate, unidentified stocks.

This Science Advisory Report is from the October 20-24, 2014 Annual Meeting of the National Marine Mammal Peer Review Committee (NMMPRC). Additional publications from this meeting will be posted on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Science Advisory Schedule as they become available.

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Inuktitut Atuinnaummijuq (PDF, 584 KB)

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