Major international survey to study the distribution and abundance of cetaceans in European Atlantic waters in summer 2022
As part of SCANS-IV, the fourth international survey of cetaceans in European Atlantic waters ("Small Cetaceans in European Atlantic waters and the North Sea - SCANS"), experts from eight nations conducted a population survey using aerial and shipboard surveys in the summer of 2022.
The Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) of the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (TiHo) coordinated this internationally unique population survey together with partner institutes from the other funding countries.
Complementing previous surveys (SCANS 1994, SCANS-II 2005, SCANS-III 2016), these data provide information on changes in the abundance and distribution of the most abundant cetacean species over a considerable period of almost three decades. This enables an assessment of the conservation status and is thus an important basis for establishing effective conservation measures. The SCANS-IV project is supported by the governments of Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
SCANS-IV, in which teams of observers in eight small aircraft and on one research vessel were deployed simultaneously in a study area from southern Norway to the Strait of Gibraltar in Portugal, investigated the European Atlantic in the summer of 2022 with the largest search effort to date. Over a period of six weeks, an area of 1.7 million km² was covered and a distance of 75,000 km was travelled along transects. The observer teams recorded thousands of cetacean groups from 17 different species.
Detailed results can be found in the SCANS IV report: SCANS-IV Report
| Project data | |
|---|---|
| Project coordinator: Dr. Anita Gilles | |
| Project staff: Dr. Dominik Nachtsheim, Dr. Nadya Ramirez-Martinez, Rémi Pigeault, Vincent Benoit | |
| Sponsorship German part: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, Bonn/Vilm | |
| Project partners and contacts: | |
| University of St Andrews, United Kingdom (Philipp Hammond, psh2@st-andrews.ac.uk ) | |
| Joint Nature Conservation Committee, United Kingdom (Nikki Taylor, Nikki.taylor@jncc.gov.uk ) | |
| Wageningen Marine Research, Netherlands (Steve Geelhoed, steve.geelhoed@wur.nl ) | |
| Aarhus University, Denmark (Signe Sveegaard, ssv@ecos.au.dk ) | |
| Swedish Museum of Natural History, Sweden (Julia Carlström, Julia.Carlstrom@nrm.se, Kylie.Owen@nrm.se ) | |
| La Rochelle University, France (Matthieu Authier matthieu.authier@univ-lr.fr & Sophie Laran, sophie.laran@univ-lr.fr ) | |
| Instituto Español de Oceanografia, Spain (Camilo Saveedra, camilo.saavedra@ieo.es ) | |
| University of Aveiro, CESAM - Centre of Environmental and Marine Studies and Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Portugal (Hélder Araújo, helder.araujo@socpvs.org and Marina Sequeira, marina.sequeira@icnf.pt) |
