The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service has received an application from the U.S. Department of the Air Force, Headquarters 96th Air Base Wing Eglin Air Force Base, requesting an Incidental Harassment Authorization to take marine mammals, by harassment, incidental to a Maritime Weapon Systems Evaluation Program within a section of the Eglin Gulf Test and Training Range in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Eglin AFB’s activities are military readiness activities per the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Per the MMPA, NMFS requests comments on its proposal to issue an Authorization to Eglin AFB to incidentally take, by Level B and Level A harassment, two species of marine mammals, the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis), during the specified actions.
NMFS requests comments on its proposed action granting this IHA. NMFS must receive comments by January 22, 2016.
Click here to read NMFS’ Federal Register notice of this proposed IHA.
