Recommendations

Marine mammals

• Implement existing international monitoring plans such as those for ringed seals and polar bear, with adaptive management principles to address the eleven FEC marine mammal species.
• Expand marine mammal monitoring efforts to include parameters on health, passive acoustics, habitat changes, and telemetry tracking studies.
• Obtain more knowledge about population sizes, densities, and distributions of marine mammal populations in order to understand the relationships between sea ice loss and climate change and to manage Arctic marine mammal populations in an appropriate manner.
• Involve indigenous and local peoples in the design and implementation of monitoring programs so that scientific knowledge and TLK holders are working collaboratively.
• Pursue a multidisciplinary and multi-knowledge approach and a high degree of collaboration across borders and between researchers, local communities and Arctic governments to better understand complex spatial-temporal shifts in drivers, ecological changes and animal health.

Mammals: The START reports on half of mammal FECs including large herbivores (caribou/reindeer, muskoxen), small herbivores (lemming), and medium-sized predators (Arctic fox). Data deficiencies prohibited reporting on medium-sized herbivores, and large and small predators.

• Develop synchronized protocols that include more attributes and reduce geographical knowledge gaps.
• Establish or expand international monitoring networks for medium-sized herbivores and large and small carnivores.
• Emphasize spatial structure and diversity in monitoring efforts due to the northward advance of southern competitors and vegetation changes.
• For large herbivore, small herbivore, and medium-sized predator FECs:
• Agree on priorities and harmonize data collection across sites and programs;
• Share and standardize protocols, in cooperation with relevant partners including Indigenous Peoples and organizations, to include abundance, demographics, spatial structure, health, phenology and, for harvested species, harvest rates; and
• Ensure monitoring programs employ existing methods with new harmonized methods to allow data comparisons.
• Monitor health as an attribute and develop standardized health assessment protocols due to the anticipated impact of climate change on distribution and prevalence of disease.
• Monitor abiotic factors and drivers of change, across greater spatial distributions to assess the cumulative impacts of climate and other anthropogenic change on populations across their ranges.
• Conduct research on the vulnerabilities of populations to climate change and human impacts, and on genetic diversity and spatial structure of FECs.
• Increase collaboration using interdisciplinary and multi-knowledge approaches to share site- and population-specific information. This can improve monitoring and lead to better models to assess the vulnerabilities and resilience of specific populations.
• Address challenges in assessing abundance of FECs across the Arctic, including:
• reliability of abundance estimates, such as lack of precision and accuracy;
• changing baselines, such as changes in species distribution, sampling methodology, and areas monitored; and
• differences in frequency and spatial extent of monitoring.

Ensure that new offshore energy development does not come in conflict with foraging habitat use by kittiwakes.

3.2.1. Use tracking and population data to prevent construction of offshore structures close to breeding sites/foraging grounds/wintering sites

Commercial activities and industries:

8. Identify, publicize and minimise impacts of commercial activities on murre breeding and foraging areas.

9. Implement programs to reduce oil pollution in areas used by murres.

10. Assess and reduce mortality of murres in commercial fishing gear.

11. Ensure that management of commercial harvests of small fish species provide for their role in murre diets.

Contribute to the implementation and development of regional flyway initiatives:
7.1 Promote and support the implementation of regional strategies and flyway initiatives
7.2 Encourage/coordinate the development of an American Mid- continental Flyway strategy

Reduce the threat of invasive alien/non-native species to the Arctic by developing and implementing common measures for early detection and reporting, identifying and blocking pathways of introduction,and sharing best practices and techniques for monitoring, eradication and control. This includes supporting international efforts currently underway, for example those of the International Maritime Organization to effectively treat ballast water to clean and treat ship hulls and drilling rigs.

9.1. Develop a strategy for the prevention and management of invasive species across the Arctic, including the identification and mitigation of pathways of introduction invasions. Include involvement of Indigenous observing networks, which include invasive and newspecies reporting, to assist with early detection.

9.2. Incorporate common protocols for early detection and reporting of non-native invasive species in the Arctic into CBMP monitoring plans.