Spotted seals (Phoca largha) are an ice-associated pinniped seasonally abundant in coastal regions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas during open water periods. Spotted seals haul out in the dozens to thousands on barrier islands, sandbars, spits, shoals, rocks, and reefs from July until mid-November. Here, we report on pilot studies using time-lapse cameras and other monitoring to describe the relative abundance and presence of spotted seals at four haulout sites during the 2020-2022 open-water seasons. Spotted seals were observed on 19.3% of 330 days monitored, across all sites and years. The presence and number of seals varied across sites, years, and months, with the most consistent and highest numbers of seals observed at the Oarlock Island site in 2020. Seals were observed at all sites except the Paisuq River mouth site in Smith Bay, though not every year at each site. When seals were present, we estimated a mean of ~10 seals across all sites and years. Only one anthropogenic disturbance event (July 2022 at Oarlock Island) was detected during three years of monitoring. The greatest number of seals observed hauled out was 69 seals at Oarlock Island in August 2020. Using generalized linear models to assess environmental factors affecting seals at the Oarlock Island site during monitoring in 2020, we found that three factors affect the presence and numbers of seals at haulouts: date, wind speed (or Beaufort scale), and wind direction. We experienced limitations to our monitoring approach due to the effects of interannual environmental variations on seal haulout behavior, impacts on our fieldwork due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and equipment disruptions due to extreme weather and other wildlife species. Our results are further described in the context of local environmental observations from community-based observers in Utqiagvik, Alaska. We conclude that time-lapse cameras provide a novel opportunity to understand the behavior, distribution, and relative abundance of an ice seal species.

2019-09-11 → 2022-09-30