Science Advisory Report 2014/052

Re-evaluation of Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in the Beaufort Sea

Summary

• Within the Beaufort Sea Large Ocean Management Area (LOMA), eighteen Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSA) were identified, mapped, and ranked for importance against the three main EBSA criteria.
• Physical drivers (features) and Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs) for each of the identified EBSAs were described and included the level of confidence in the supporting data. Seasonality, when appropriate, was identified.
• Seven EBSAs were identified within the Beaufort Shelf (Yukon North Slope, Mackenzie Trough, Mackenzie Estuary and Nearshore Beaufort Shelf, Beaufort Shelf Break and Slope, Kugmallit Canyon, Husky Lakes, Liverpool Bay), seven within Amundsen Gulf (Cape Bathurst/Ballie Island, Horton River, Cape Bathurst Polynya, De Salis Bay, Diamond Jenness, Southern Amundsen Gulf, Darnley Bay nearshore migration and feeding corridor) and four in the northern portion of the LOMA (Western Banks Island, Viscount Melville Sound, Arctic Basin Multi-year Pack Ice, Archipelago Multi-year Pack Ice).
• A number of sources of information were used for this assessment including scientific data, published and unpublished papers, local ecological knowledge (LEK) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and expert participant knowledge.
• All areas within the Beaufort Sea LOMA hold some ecological and/or biological importance and areas of significance may exist within a number of data/knowledge poor regions of the LOMA. In addition to the limitations imposed on scientific research, local area knowledge is also limited by area accessibility and therefore EBSAs evaluations are often constrained to areas that are traditionally visited (i.e., areas of occupation) and accessible with relative ease (e.g., logistically, financially, weather dependent).
• The ability to rank features against the criteria was influenced by the scale of observations and importance making it difficult to evaluate relative to the scale of LOMA.
• The difference between EBSA that have a wealth of information and those that don’t was reflected using a subjective ranking system for the level of confidence in data/information supporting the identification of the EBSA.
• In some cases, the ecological or biological feature of an EBSA extends outside Canadian waters or beyond the LOMA (i.e., Viscount Melville Sound. In these situations, the EBSA boundaries were outlined by the defined political/regional borders.

This Science Advisory Report is from the November 20-22, 2012 re-evaluation of the Beaufort Sea Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs). Additional publications from this meeting will be posted on the DFO Science Advisory Schedule as they become available. A DFO Technical Report will be prepared, at a later date, to support the EBSA identification with geo-referenced data layers.

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