Aerial surveys to study cetaceans : implications for integrated conservation management and sustainable maritime development

Abstract

Both long and short term marine conservation strategies are best implemented as part of effectively integrated maritime management. These strategies and management benefit from research and monitoring of mobile and vulnerable marine species, like cetaceans. A research area of 120,000 km2 around the Maltese Islands has been and still is the subject of year-round marine research since 1997 (Vella 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, Vella & Vella 2011, Vella & Vella 2012). All cetacean species in the area have been studied and are monitored annually using aerial strip-transect survey techniques (side-by-side with marine surveys) allowing for various aspects of cetacean species spatial-temporal associations to be analysed.