NOAA Releases Final Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap
NOAA has released its final Ocean Noise Strategy Roadmap, which will guide the agency in more effectively and comprehensively managing ocean noise effects on marine life during the next decade. Sound is critical for the survival of many marine animals. It’s a primary means of communication, orientation and navigation, finding food, avoiding predators, and mate selection. Ocean noise can be caused by natural or human sources. The roadmap will serve as a guide across NOAA, reviewing the status of the science on ocean noise and informing next steps. NOAA is already taking on some of these recommendations, such as the recent launch of an underwater network of acoustic monitoring sensors.
NOAA Aid to Protect Marine Mammals
NOAA Fisheries awarded nearly $3 million in grants to support the conservation and recovery of protected marine species through stranding response and marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation. Through the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant Program, NOAA awarded 32 grants to nonprofit organizations, aquariums, universities, and coastal state, local and tribal governments that are members of the National Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Recipients will use their award funds to respond to marine mammal strandings, improve capacity at their facilities, and conduct scientific investigations into the causes of stranding events and unusual mortality events.
Critical Habitat for Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale
Using new information not previously available, NOAA Fisheries is expanding critical habitat for endangered North Atlantic right whales to cover its northeast feeding areas in the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank region and southeast calving grounds from North Carolina to Florida. This final rule, which was initially proposed in February 2015 and received 261 general comments over a 60-day comment period, does not include any new restrictions or management measures for commercial fishing operations. This rule is based on 35 years of aircraft and ship borne surveys of right whale distribution, and research into foraging and prey availability. Together, these data provide a far more robust understanding of the factors critical to species recovery.
NOAA’s National Saltwater Recreational Fishing Policy Opposed
Recently, NOAA Fisheries released the implementation plan to support the latest National Saltwater Recreational Fishing Policy. The policy, announced at the Progressive Miami International Boat Show in February, was developed with input from recreational fishing and boating communities, conservation organizations, and managers across the nation. It incorporates a number of concerns voiced by the boating and fishing communities including public access, resource stewardship, regulatory education, science innovation, and better lines of communication between state and federal rule makers with the community. The implementation plan itself…
Conservation Efforts in Revised ESA Listing of Green Sea Turtle
NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed today to reclassify the green sea turtle under the Endangered Species Act, and list turtles originating from two breeding populations currently considered endangered as threatened due to improvements in their populations. After a review of the global status of green sea turtles, the agencies are proposing to reclassify the species into 11 Distinct Population Segments (DPS) under the ESA, which maintains federal protections while providing a more tailored approach for managers to address specific threats facing different populations. Years of coordinated conservation efforts have resulted in increasing numbers of turtles nesting in Florida and along the Pacific Coast of Mexico.
Cargo Vessel Operator Pleads Guilty
On Nov. 10, Hiong Guan Navegacion Japan Co. Ltd., operator of the commercial cargo ship Balsa 62, agreed to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., to conspiracy and to falsifying and failing to properly maintain records meant to ensure environmental compliance, the Justice Department announced. Specifically, Hiong Guan agreed to plead guilty for falsifying the oil record book kept on board the Balsa 62. Federal and international law requires that all ships comply with pollution regulations that include the proper disposal of oily water and sludge by passing the oily water through an oily-water separator aboard the vessel or burning the sludge in the ship’s incinerator.
