'Coastal Marine Mammals along the eastern Gulf coast of Thailand' presentation

A group of international scientists has been documenting relative abundance and distribution of coastal marine mammals in Trat province in the coastal islands along the eastern Gulf coast ofThailand since 2003. This multi-year project is truly interdisciplinary, and combines boat based line transect surveys, photo-id, towed acoustic arrays, and spatially explicit modeling of physical and biological environmental habitat criteria in a geographic information science format, community interviews that address the cultural/traditional knowledge of villagers and assess conservation values, and collaboration with villages and local schools for conservation education.   We believe that this approach is needed to contribute effectively to local/regional conservation and possible protected area management schemes for coastal cetaceans, especially in a rapidly developing area with few protected areas. 

Speaker: Ellen Hines teaches marine and coastal GIS at San Francisco State University . Her research on marine mammals includes studies on dugongs in southern Thailand , coastal marine mammals in the eastern Gulf of Thailand , gray whales in British Columbia , and harbor seals in San Francisco Bay . Her research interests include the integrated use of GIS and remote sensing in delineation of marine mammal habitat, issues of conservation in small-scale fisheries, and the development of research protocols for marine mammals in developing countries.