Knowing what features make habitat suitable for a species can give insight on important aspects of life history and improve understanding of key habitat areas for a population. Estuaries and coastline along the western Hudson Bay are summer habitat for the Western Hudson Bay (WHB) beluga population. The habitat features associated with beluga migration to and use of the Nelson, Seal and Churchill estuaries every summer are not fully understood, but theories include that shallow waters provide protection from predators, warm estuary water has metabolic benefits for growth and molting, and that estuary habitat is rich in prey. Spatial analysis and mapping programs have been used to determine key habitat areas for marine mammals and can be a useful tool for understanding WHB beluga habitat.

Beluga locations will be entered in to ArcMap from georeferenced aerial photos collected during the summer 2018 BaySys cruise. Relationships between location, habitat characteristics (distance to coast, tide), and beluga features (age class, group size) will be examined by testing for patterns in distribution. These data will reveal beluga habitat associations in and out of estuary’s that will provide information on critical habitat. Key habitat features along the coast of the western Hudson Bay will be analyzed by running generalized linear models based on a grid system. Results will be used to create a map of key summer habitat along the coast and in estuaries. This poster will describe methods and give initial findings on habitat associations. Decreasing ice cover in the Hudson Bay will result in increased shipping traffic and increased beluga predator range. Improving understanding on beluga estuary use and critical habitat areas will assist in management as warming temperatures result in habitat-based risks to the WHB beluga population.