The First Result of the ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative
The First Result of the ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative (ASI) were presented today at the ASI Special Event held in Istanbul in Turkey proceeding the ACCOBAMS 7th Meeting of the Parties which runs from tomorrow to Friday. The ASI aims to “establish an integrated, collaborative and coordinated monitoring system” to assess the status of the cetacean population at the whole ACCOBAMS area level. Aerial surveys were conducted for more than 75% of the region with many of the gaps filled using boat surveys.
The ASI Special Event saw talks from member of CNRS Lebanon, Representatives of Egypt and Syria, Mare Nostrum, TUDAV, UNEP/MAP/SPA-RAC, Pelagis Observatory, IMMRAC and of course from Simone Panigada, the ASI Project Coordinator and Florence Descroix-Commanducci, ACCOBAMS Executive Secretary.
The talks not only presented the results of the study (available at: https://www.accobams.org/asi-data-presentation/) but also talked about the setbacks encountered in several countries and how they were overcome as well as the use of other methods such as acoustic surveys and the future use of drones.
