Influence of anthropogenic activities on marine mammal strandings in the estuary and northwestern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec, Canada, 1994–2008
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Stranding records have long been used to monitor marine mammal mortalities and to help identify threats to populations. In coastal areas, marinemammals face numerous anthropogenic threats such as marine traffic and commercial fishing. The objective of this study was to investigate marinemammal stranding records from the St. Lawrence Estuary (SLE) and the northwestern Gulf of St. Lawrence (NWGSL), Quebec, Canada from 1994to 2008 for evidence of anthropogenic trauma caused by entanglement in fishing gear, ship collisions and gunshots. Of 1,590 marine mammalstranding records, 12% (n = 192) had evidence of anthropogenic trauma, most incidents being reported during summer when activities such asmarine traffic, most commercial fishing and recreational boating, occurred and a greater number of species were present in the area. These incidentswere classified into five categories (Incidental catch, Ship collision, Severe injury, Gunshot, Other). There were 1,245 mortalities and observationson carcasses suggested that anthropogenic trauma led to the death of 11% (141/1,245) of marine mammals: 14% (87/627) of cetaceans and 9%(54/618) of seals. Mortality of seals due to anthropogenic trauma was low, involving mainly Gunshot for grey (26% or 8/31) and harbour seals(26% or 8/31). Over the study period, marine mammal incidents with evidence of anthropogenic trauma increased significantly, driven by an increasein Incidental catch for two mysticete species, the common minke whale, 42% (39/92) and humpback whale, 13% (12/92) and Other for harbourporpoise 67% (16/24). Ship collision was the most common anthropogenic trauma for fin whales (22% or 8/36) and SLE beluga5 (22% or 8/36).Severe injury was reported for 22% (2/9) of small cetaceans and 78% (7/9) of seals. Evidence from some harbour porpoise stranding records(categorised as Other) suggests illegal hunting, incidental catch, predation or scavenging by grey seals in a marine protected area. The observedincrease in Incidental catch of common minke and humpback whales may be due to: (1) a shift in distribution of these two species into the SLE andNWGSL, possibly related to changes in the ecosystem; (2) changes in fishery practices; and (3) an increase in detection of marine mammal strandings.Anthropogenic trauma affecting marine mammals was documented including some species at risk, such as the harbour porpoise, the St. LawrenceEstuary beluga population, blue and North Atlantic right whales, in the St. Lawrence ecosystem including in a marine protected area. This studydemonstrates the usefulness of stranding records in helping to monitor human-caused mortality in marine mammal populations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".