742 



Fishery Bulletin 98(4) 



N 



00 



IT) 







in 



80.33 79,67 



79.00 78.33 77.67 



Figure 5 (continued) 



77.00 



76.33 W 



to restrict the distribution of beluga whales and to make 

 it difficult to count them. The sui-vey was not extended 

 into this area of heavy ice. North-south transects were 

 flown in southern Ungava Bay, south of the ice. The second 

 survey, 24-29 August, was flown over open water through- 

 out Ungava Bay. However, some planned flight patterns 

 were limited by fog in northeastern Ungava Bay. 



In Ungava Bay, beluga whales were seen on four of five 

 flying days in July, with a maximum daily count of 20 

 individuals in one sighting, and on three of six flying days 

 in August, with 20 individuals in two sightings on the best 

 day (Table 3). In the two surveys together, beluga whales 

 were sighted in the Whale Kiver estuary on six of seven 

 overflights. There were also two sightings in southern 

 Ungava Bay close to the Whale River, and two sightings of 



small groups in western Ungava Bay. The mean sighting 

 size was 5.6 groups (SE=2.0). 



However, no beluga whales were seen within the 

 designed sui-vey strip. From independent binomial sighting 

 probabilities, corresponding upper 90% CLs would be 

 25.5 groups for the first survey and 34.3 groups for the 

 second (assuming the mean group size of 5.6, equal to 143 

 and 192 animals). One off-strip sighting was made on a 

 sample survey flight during each survey, but no distance 

 measurements were made. Off-strip effort is considered 

 to have an outer visibility limit similar to that estimated 

 by line transect analysis of the data for James Bay and 

 eastern Hudson Bay, but an inner limiting angle similar 

 to the 72° estimated for a similar platform by Harwood 

 et al. (1996). This would result in a strip width of about 



