The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published notice of the date, time, and location of the public meeting being held prior to the 65th International Whaling Commission meeting. The public meeting will be held August 7, 2014, at 2 p.m. The meeting will be held in the NOAA Science Center Room, 1301 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
A workshop on the status and future of underwater hearing research was convened from September 10-12, 2013 in San Diego, California. The workshop was held to evaluate recent and current research, and to identify future research avenues with the greatest potential for advancing the state of knowledge on underwater hearing in marine mammals.
The workshop consisted of three days of presentations by members of the scientific community actively involved in the study of marine mammal hearing. These presentations included research into the relationship between sound exposure and temporary threshold shift, masking, anatomically-based modeling of marine mammal auditory systems, and behavioral and evoked potential audiometry. The workshop was funded by the Living Marine Resources, by the National Marine Fisheries Service, and by the Office of Naval Research.
In January, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed an Alaska District Court decision which held that BOEM arbitrarily used an estimate of 1 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil from the Chukchi in assessing the potential environmental impacts of the 2008 Chukchi Sea oil and gas lease sale. BOEM has filed a status report with the district court. The agency told the court that it anticipates issuing a new record of decision, or ROD, in March 2015, after the completion of a new supplementary environmental impact statement, or SEIS, for the sale.
The U.S. Navy exposed satellite-tagged animals to estimated received levels of 149 to 168 dB for a bottlenose dolphin, and 141 to 162 dB for a short-finned pilot whale. The bottlenose dolphin showed no large scale movements out of the area despite these relatively high predicted received levels, and the short-finned pilot whale actually moved towards areas of higher exposures during the third day of a 3-day period of regular MFAS use.
Click here to read the report of these sonar exposure experiments.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s proposed rule designating critical habitat for ringed seals. NMFS’ proposed rules would be issued under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. OMB is reviewing the proposals pursuant to OMB’s authority under Executive Order 12866. Stakeholders including oil and gas companies have met with OMB regarding these proposals. Click here for OMB’s website regarding its review.
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has published “Marine Mammal Impact Assessments which have been assessed as meeting the standards described in the Seismic Code of Conduct to the satisfaction of the Director-General of the Department of Conservation.” Click here for links to these Impact Assessments.
Chip Gill, President of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, recently submitted a letter to the editor of the St. Augustine Record. Mr. Gill’s letter is reprinted below:
“Editor: In response to the May editorial, ‘Seismic testing: Lots of pain, little gain,’ claims that seismic surveys cause serious harm to marine life are erroneous. The federal government acknowledges seismic surveys pose minimal risks of danger, stating ‘To date, there is no evidence that serious injury, death or stranding by marine mammals can occur from exposure to air gun pulses, even in the case of large airgun arrays (NOAA -NMFS, Federal Register Notice March 4, 2014-Vol. 79, No. 42 Page 12166, Comment No. 6). For 40 years, the industry has consistently demonstrated its ability to conduct seismic exploration in an environmentally responsible manner. There’s no scientific evidence demonstrating biologically significant negative impacts on marine mammal populations.
The United States National Marine Fisheries Service has issued an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA) to Cape Wind Associates (CWA) to take marine mammals, by harassment, incidental to pre-construction high resolution survey activities in Nantucket Sound. This IHA is issued under the U.S. Mammal Protection Act . It is effective April 25, 2014, through April 24, 2015. CWA will conduct a high resolution geophysical survey in order to acquire remote-sensing data around Horseshoe Shoal which will be used to characterize resources at or below the seafloor. The purpose of the survey is to identify any submerged cultural resources that may be present and to generate additional data describing the geological environment within the survey area.
The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission – NAMMCO – has made all previous volumes in the NAMMCO Scientific Publications series available online as open-access (i.e., free). Visit the journal website is at http://septentrio.uit.no/
The purpose of the NAMMCO Scientific Publications series is to make available, in published, peer-reviewed form, scientific papers which have contributed to the work carried out by the NAMMCO Scientific Committee.
For more information about the series, contact Jill Prewitt at jill.prewitt@nammco.no<
June 1 is the deadline for submitting abstracts to the Mares Conference, Marine Ecosystems Health and Conservation, 17-21 November 2014, Olhao, Portugal. This international and open conference will bring together scientists from different levels and disciplines to discuss and address main issues about marine ecosystems health and conservation. Six themes will be developed through the conference, and for each one a keynote speaker has been invited:
1. Future Oceans : temperature changes – hypoxia – acidification
2. Understanding biodiversity effects on the functioning of marine ecosystems : Lisa Levin<http://www.
3. Biological invasions: Gregory M. Ruiz<http://www.
4. Natural Resources : overexploitation, fisheries and aquaculture: Rainer Froese <http://www.maresconference.
5. Ocean noise pollution: Peter L. Tyack<http://www.
6. Habitat loss, urban development, coastal infrastructures and Marine Spatial Planning: Michael W. Beck<http://www.
