Addressing beluga conservation threats
The Beluga Bits project through Zooniverse with support from Polar Bears International and explore.org is starting to address conservation threats. Since their inception of the project in 2016, the project is mostly collecting data but this will lead to learning more about this western Hudson Bay/Churchill River Estuary population. The data they are collecting through snapshots from citizen scientists will help better understand how the population is being affected by common beluga threats. According to the Manitoba Western Hudson Bay Ad Hoc Beluga Habitat Sustainability Plan Committee (2016), these conservation threats include an increase in human produced underwater noise, pollution, and climate change leading to an increased predation from polar bears and orcas. Understanding if individuals have site fidelity can lead to understanding how their migration could be affected by various sources of underwater noise. Looking at scars on individuals will determine how they are being p...