WEST is an industry-leading environmental and statistical consulting firm with extensive experience working with marine mammals. WEST has over 22 peer-reviewed publications regarding marine mammal projects, mostly in Northern climates in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
These studies include population and demographic modeling of polar bears, habitat and global warming impact assessment for polar bears, assessment of anthropogenic sound impacts on bowhead whales, population and habitat estimation for walrus, impact assessment of US Navy rocket launches on seals and sea lions, habitat estimation of gray whales in Russian controlled waters, and others.
The field methods employed during these studies involved live capture, radio telemetry, and remote video capture (both land-based and from unmanned aerial vehicles). The statistical techniques employed during these studies included capture-recapture analysis, resource selection analysis, simulation of study design to assess precision, line-transect analyses, acoustic analyses, and assistance with study design.