I think it's certainly important to remove that snapshot-type science. Traditionally when there's open water you're doing research, but the ice in between the seasons is so critical and probably more productive than just open water.
If you involve programs that involve communities, research teams, commercial groups, where you have year-round, and not just one month a year, you get a better picture of what's really happening. Studying the ecosystem, you need to understand migration patterns and how far the animals are going, but not just the migration patterns specifically of the seal. What about the food they're eating? What are the fish doing? Where are they migrating? Where are the breeding grounds for shrimps? Opportunistically the seal are going to be looking for where the food is easiest to get to.
In some areas it might be all shrimp. In other areas it may have a more commercial influence, but if you have a snapshot, you're never really going to know. If you have that throughout the year, it also creates an industry, an opportunity for communities where capacity can be built to support that type of research.
Then you have true traditional knowledge, co-production design programs that have meaning for many: for industry, for researchers, but mainly for the communities in the north. Therefore, a balance is required, and I see that's the only way of doing it to understand that balance in the ecosystem.