English - Caribbean Environment Programme

3. Habitat useInformation on behaviour and habitat use was assembled to help identify locations used forimportant life processes. Observations of feeding activity, resting and socialising were noted, alongwith any information on migration. The presence of calves was recorded as this indicates the areamay be used for calving and/or as a nursery area. Breeding is rarely directly observed in cetaceansin UK waters but the timings can sometimes be calculated based on when young calves begin tobe seen 58 . Concentrations of animals observed during the months when that species is known tobreed may indicate that an area is important for this purpose. Freshly stranded neonates alsoindicate that breeding and calving are taking place, so information on neonate strandings wasalso documented.Wherever possible, information on cetacean prey distribution and abundance was included,although this should be regarded as a preliminary and incomplete review. A thorough review ofthis type of data was beyond the scope of the project but should be undertaken to gain a betterunderstanding of prey-based requirements.In the initial stages of the project, attempts were made to identify any unanalysed or partiallyanalysed datasets that might be available for inclusion. Some datasets were identified that havenot yet been fully analysed and incorporated into publicly available papers and reports. Unfortunatelyit was impossible to obtain these during the timeframe of this project. However, these weregenerally for areas where more information was available and not for the many areas where dataare extremely sparse. Their inclusion was not considered vital to the success of the project. However,on a local scale, these additional datasets would be valuable to include in future analysis.It is important to take into account that information is often patchy and in some areas severelylacking. In an ideal world, assessments such as these would be undertaken using datasets thatwhen combined provide complete and even coverage throughout the survey area. This level ofinformation will not be available for many years, if ever, and decisions must be taken in themeantime using the data that are available. The results from this project will invariably be biasedtowards areas where we have information. Areas not highlighted are not necessarily unimportant,there may just be little or no information available at present with which to make an assessment.2058Fedak, 2002