Posters offer images of animals,
maps, charts
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Here's
one of the posters of various marine mammals included in the
Eastern Arctic Mariner's Guide, released May 16 by WWF-Canada.
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A new pictorial guide should help mariners in the eastern Arctic
to identify and avoid disturbing marine mammals like whales, walrus,
seals and polar bears.
The Eastern
Arctic Mariner's Guide, unveiled at a Canadian Marine Advisory
Council meeting on Monday by the World Wildlife Fund-Canada, is
made up of three large posters to be hung on a ship's bridge.
These feature, among other information, a chart with images
to help mariners recognize whales, seals, polar bears and walruses.
WWF-Canada said it plans to put the guide, which follows the
release of its Mariner's
Guide to Hudson Strait, directly into the hands of shipping
company owners, operators and federal regulators.
"Without this kind of information built into voyage planning,
mariners have no way of knowing when they are crossing through sensitive
wildlife areas or community travel routes," said Paul Crowley, vice-president
of Arctic conservation for WWF-Canada, in a release on the new guide.
"While the willingness to plan wildlife-friendly routes and
limit impacts on communities may be there, the ability to do so
in the eastern Arctic was limited before now."
The guide's maps show where animals live, their migration routes
and calving areas, conservation and ice areas, as well as where
people travel and where caribou may cross the ice.
The guide suggests courses of action when, for example, icebreaking
or shipping in polynyas and around floe edges.
There's also a list of phone numbers so mariners can report
sightings and incidents to the proper authorities.
Community researcher Tim Soucie of Pond Inlet praised the guide
as being "very informative."
"Shipping around my community of Pond Inlet has drastically
increased over the past few years, mainly due to tourism and ships
servicing the Baffinland mine. Activities like these have the potential
to interfere with community uses, disturbing and disrupting our
ability to feed our families," he said in the release.
That's because ship traffic can often drive marine mammals away
from their usual habitat, the WWF said, while icebreaking can damage
caribou migration routes.
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