Marine Mammals

The International Association of Geophysical contractors republished the following article entitled “Debate Simmers Over Atlantic Oil, Gas Exploration”:

“Mount Pleasant, South Carolina – On this dock, where captains and first mates are freshening their boats with coats of white paint and rigging up new shrimp trawling gear to take to springtime Atlantic waters, the debate over drilling for oil in East Coast waters divides colleagues and, occasionally, families.

Much of Capt. Wayne Magwood’s pro-offshore drilling stance comes down to a pocketbook issue. Burning through 1,000 gallons of diesel a week in his boat Winds of Fortune is manageable with low diesel costs, but past high fuel prices have made the economics of shrimping nearly impossible.

CBC News Nova Scotia recently published following article about protecting marine mammals from commercial fishing imports into the United States:

“Canadian researchers say they have a solution to a new U.S. government requirement that its seafood imports be caught in a way that minimizes harm to marine mammals.

A recently released paper recommends summertime closures in two fishing grounds off Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to protect one of the most threatened marine mammals in Atlantic Canadian waters — the North Atlantic right whale.

The idea is to get fishing gear and lines out of the water when endangered whales are in the area.

The U.S. Department of the Interior published the following Federal Register notice:

“On November 18, 2016, the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission (Commission), established under the Agreement Between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Russian Federation on the Conservation and Management of the Alaska-Chukotka Polar Bear Population (2000 Agreement), unanimously agreed to maintain the annual taking limit adopted in 2010 for the Alaska Chukotka polar bear population. In 2010, the Commission established an annual taking limit of the number of bears that may be removed from this population as a result of human activities, such as bears taken for subsistence purposes and in defense of human life. This annual taking limit, which corresponds with the annual sustainable harvest level for this population, is 58 polar bears per year, of which no more than one-third will be females. Under the 2000 Agreement, the annual taking limit is to be shared equally between the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

The International Association of Geophysical Contractors published the following article, “Science-Based Decision-Making’ Means Supporting Arctic Energy Development,” on the IAGC website:

“Last fall, we made the case for continued Arctic oil and gas development in these pages, explaining that the body of scientific knowledge about the Arctic environment more than justifies why exploration and production should continue.

Unfortunately at the end of last year, the Obama Administration issued a ban on new Arctic leases in the energy-rich portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Shortly before that decision, the former President also signed an executive order withholding 40,300 square miles of the Bering Sea off Alaska from oil and gas leasing, in order to advance “science-based decision-making.”

The NIWA, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, posted the following article about some of its research activities:

“The sounds of whales and dolphins rarely seen in New Zealand waters have been recorded by a NIWA scientist in a pioneering underwater sound project.

Last year NIWA marine ecologist Dr Kim Goetz led a programme to deploy seven acoustic moorings in Cook Strait that recorded the sounds of marine mammals for six months until they were retrieved in December.

“More than half the world’s whale and dolphin species are found in New Zealand waters, yet very little is known about their migration paths, their behaviour and where they go,” Dr Goetz says.

The European Cetacean Society published the following notice about one of its Workshops:

“Feel free to participate in our workshop: ‘5 th workshop on
Communicating Marine Mammal Science to the general public’
which will be held on Sunday, April 30th 2017 form 9:00-17:00 in
Middelfart, Denmark, a day before the begin of the 31st Conference of
the European Cetacean Society.

This workshop is organized by Volker Smit, NGO MEER, Berlin, Germany
(smit@m-e-e-r.de <mailto:smit@m-e-e-r.de>) and Dr. Luigi Bundone,
Institution: Archipelagos ambiente e sviluppo, Italia
(luigibundone@tiscali.it <mailto:luigibundone@tiscali.it>).The
participation fee is 25 euros to be paid in cash on site.

To register, please e-mail Volker Smit: smit@m-e-e-r.de

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service has issued an incidental harassment authorization to the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans at the University of California Santa Cruz to incidentally harass, by Level B harassment only, marine mammals during rocky intertidal monitoring surveys along the California and Oregon coasts. NMFS issued this IHA under Marine Mammal Protection Act. This Authorization is effective from February 21, 2017 through February 20, 2018. Click here for the Federal Register notice of this IHA, which contains more information and relevant links.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service published Federal Register notice that NMFS has issued has issued an incidental harassment authorization to the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to incidentally harass, by Level B harassment only, marine mammals during seabird and shorebird monitoring and other research activities in the Eastern MA NWR Complex. This Authorization is effective from April 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018. It is issued pursuant to regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Click here for the Federal Register notice of this action which contains more details and relevant links.

The following press release was recently published:

“The 2nd edition of Humpback whales world congress (HWWC) will be held from July 3rd to July 7th, 2017, in Reunion Island, Indian Ocean.

Please reminder that the deadline for abstract submission is the 6th of March 2017. Click here.

Specific research topics, fields of study, and methodological approaches have been left open intentionally to encourage interdisciplinary exchange. Some of them are: basic and applied research, collaboration programs, management, conservation and implementation of sustainable development policy, economic and social involvement.

The keynote speakers are:

The organizers of SEAMANNS distributed the following email:

“Just a gentle reminder that the 2017 Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Marine Mammal Symposium (SEAMAMMS) will take place April 7-9, 2016 in Beaufort, NC and will be co-hosted by the Duke Marine Lab and the North Carolina Maritime Museum.  For meeting details, information on abstract submission, and to register, please visit here.

Please note that abstracts must be submitted online by 5:00 PM EST this Friday, February 17th.  Early Registration will end on March 11th – we encourage everyone to register early.