Canada’s Oceans Now: Arctic Ecosystems 2023 - Community observations: tracking coastal biodiversity

Community observations: tracking coastal biodiversity
Indigenous Knowledge over generations provides insights to determine if a species is new to an area, or just rare and not yet documented.

On the left side, there are four boxes with explanatory text and an image.

• Top left:
• Text: “Arctic communities report unusual sightings of species far from the areas where they are usually seen. Community harvests are important for documenting these species.”
• Image: a group of people are standing on the shore, pulling a large net containing fish from the water. Photo credit – Matt Gilbert
• Top right:
• Text: “Community monitoring is tracking the expansion of salmon in the Canadian Arctic. More species of salmon are found in their harvest (pink salmons shown here).”
• Image: A person is standing on an Arctic shoreline amongst some rocks, smiling towards the camera. They are holding a pink salmon in their hands. Photo credit – Pakak Picco
• Bottom left:
• Text: Communities across Inuit Nunangat use social media to connect knowledge by sharing observations.
• Image: A hand is holding a mobile phone and pointing it towards the water of a sandy/rocky coast. Photo credit – Usaaraq Jari Aariak
• Bottom right:
• Text: “Rare events like salmon sharks outside their usual habitat suggest temporary changes to connections between ocean regions.
• Image: A salmon shark swims in dark waters. Photo credit – Warren Metcalf/Shutterstock

On the right side, three maps stacked horizontally show the known distribution of a species in dark blue and additional sightings as dark red circles.

• Pink Salmon (top): known distribution is shown around Alaska and the western Canadian Arctic. Three additional sightings are reported, one near Cambridge Bay and two in the eastern Canadian Arctic.
• Salmon Shark (middle): known distribution is found near the east coast of Alaska, but an additional sighting was made further east near Kugluktuk, NU.
• Greenland Shark (bottom): know distribution is in the eastern Canadian Arctic   but an additional sighting was made more south by Coral Harbour, Southampton Island, NU.