Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop
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Report of the Joint Marine Mammal Commission – National Marine Fisheries Service Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop Dennis Heinemann Jason Gedamke Erin Oleson Jay Barlow Jessica Crance Marla Holt Melissa Soldevilla Sofie Van Parijs U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-164 July 2016 Report of the Joint Marine Mammal Commission – National Marine Fisheries Service Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop Dennis Heinemann, Marine Mammal Commission Jason Gedamke, Office of Science & Technology, NMFS Erin Oleson, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, NMFS Jay Barlow, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NMFS Jessica Crance, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NMFS Marla Holt, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NMFS Melissa Soldevilla, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, NMFS Sofie Van Parijs, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, NMFS NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-F/SPO-164 July 2016 U.S. Department of Commerce Marine Mammal Commission Penny S. Pritzker, Secretary Rebecca J. Lent, Executive Director National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Kathryn D. Sullivan, Administrator National Marine Fisheries Service Eileen Sobeck, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Recommended citation: Heinemann, D., J. Gedamke, E. Oleson, J. Barlow, J. Crance, M. Holt, M. Soldevilla, and S. Van Parijs. 2016. Report of the Joint Marine Mammal Commission-National Marine Fisheries Service Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop, 16–17 April, 2015, La Jolla, CA. Marine Mammal Commission, Bethesda, MD, and National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, MD., U.S. Dept. Commerce. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-F/SPO-164, 107 p. Copies of this report may be obtained from: NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1315 East-West Highway, SSMC 3-Room 12538 Silver Spring, MD 20910 or Marine Mammal Commission 4340 East-West Highway, Rm 700 Bethesda, MD 20814 Or online at: http://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/tm/ http://www.mmc.gov Disclaimer The workshop Steering Committee prepared this report for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Any mention of, or reference to, trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement by the Marine Mammal Commission or the National Marine Fisheries Service. ii Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop, La Jolla, CA, April 2015 Executive Summary software for collecting passive acoustic data and in the analytical approaches for processing these large datasets. In April 2015, the Marine The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is Mammal Commission and NMFS convened a responsible for gathering the information needed workshop to explore how passive acoustics may to support its stock assessments of marine now best contribute to the significant challenges mammals. The distribution and abundance of in surveying marine mammals and fulfilling stock each stock is the core of those assessments. Data assessment requirements. The workshop to support stock assessments are traditionally addressed the breadth and depth of passive gathered by conducting visual observations acoustics development and use across the during shipboard and/or aerial surveys. Science Centers in the context of its broader Increasingly, however, the agency is having development and use throughout the marine difficulty provide abundance estimates and other mammal community. Workshop participants data needed for marine mammal stock included researchers from all six Science Centers, assessments. These challenges have spurred a representative of NMFS’s Office of Science & NMFS to increase its investment in alternative Technology (OS&T), a representative of the monitoring methods that may fill some critical Marine Mammal Commission, and experts from data gaps more effectively and efficiently than academic institutions. large-scale ship and aerial surveys alone. For the last several years, research teams across Science Center Resources NMFS have been investigating the use of Information collected from NMFS’s Science advanced survey techniques to fill the stock Centers before the workshop uncovered a assessment data gap or to supplement traditional number of important issues. The use of passive survey data. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) acoustics to gather critical data and to augment is a promising approach that can be pursued visual surveys of marine mammals is clearly within the context of existing ship-based survey growing in importance. Passive acoustics are efforts or as part of an autonomous monitoring used to augment ship-based, line-transect system. Research teams around the world are surveys; to contribute to stock delineation; to developing new vehicles, recorders, software and assess the occurrence and seasonality of marine analytical techniques to study marine mammals. mammals; and to estimate the density, However, it is clear that one approach will not abundance, and trends of marine mammals. adequately address all NMFS science goals and However, limited resources have caused the research requirements for stock assessments. Science Centers to rely primarily on outside Technological, scientific and funding constraints organizations and researchers for support and are hindering the full and efficient use of passive expertise. Most NMFS staff members engaged in acoustics by NMFS to inform its marine mammal passive acoustics are temporary employees or stock assessments. students, making it very difficult to build the necessary in-house expertise and institutional NMFS sponsored a previous workshop on stock knowledge. In addition, the availability of assessment using passive acoustics (Mellinger equipment is an issue for several Science Centers: and Barlow, 2003). Since then, however, there often they do not have the resources to develop, has been rapid growth in the hardware and iii Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop, La Jolla, CA, April 2015 purchase or lease the equipment they require. An cost, although the large volume of resulting data exception to this limitation is the Southwest may require significant resources for analysis and Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC), which has led storage. Increasing capacity in this area will the Science Centers in a concerted effort to require research in a number of areas, including standardize the technology and increase the establishing species/stock specific vocalization1 efficiency of NMFS in using and maintaining repertoires; understanding the influence of towed-array systems. Another issue affecting the ecological and social context on vocalization Science Centers is that they do not have the behavior; development of autonomous platforms information technology infrastructure to store that can be used over the vast pelagic ocean and disseminate the vast quantities of digital data basins; and the development of much better associated with passive acoustic studies. automatic vocalization detectors and classifiers. Using Passive Acoustics in Stock Stock Delineation Assessment Distinguishing stocks and defining their boundaries is challenging, often requiring genetic Occurrence and Seasonality or morphological differences between groups of Deriving a list of species that occur in a animals to delineate putative stocks. There has management area is one of the most basic been growing interest in using other lines of components of stock assessment. When it is not evidence for stock delineation, including feasible to conduct regular surveys to evaluate differences in the characteristics of vocalizations. species’ seasonal occurrence in a region, passive Geographic mapping of the vocalization acoustics has contributed significantly to marine characteristics for some baleen whale and mammal stock assessments. When a vocalization delphinid species suggests differences in from a species is characteristic and well vocalizations may be a promising avenue of described, its detection in an acoustic recording pursuit for identifying putative stocks for further can document occurrence of that species in a study using other non-acoustic lines of evidence. region. In addition, a collection of detections over Several factors can confound the apparent a longer time series helps to determine whether differences in vocalizations among putative the species is common or rare and whether it stocks. Vocalization differences may reflect occurs year-round, seasonally or infrequently. habitat, social or seasonal context, necessitating There are many examples of PAM providing rich the delineation of differences in vocalizations datasets from which species’ occurrence and that hold up over long periods and that seasonality have been evaluated. However, there encompass the full range of environmental and is more to be done in the field, especially as social contexts. associations with habitat and environmental change become increasingly important aspects of stock assessment. 1 In this report, the term “vocalization” refers to the wide range of sounds (songs, whistles, calls, clicks, The assessment of occurrence and seasonality etc.) made by marine mammals that may be requires long-term monitoring, and for this, recorded and analyzed in passive acoustic research and monitoring. We recognize that “vocalization” is autonomous instruments are ideal. Such somewhat of a misnomer because marine mammals instrumentation can be deployed at relatively low may not use vocal cords to produce all sound types. iv Passive Acoustic Surveying Workshop, La Jolla, CA, April 2015 Differences in vocalization