[MARMAM] JNCC approved MMO training course.

[Admin Team]

Ocean Science Consulting Limited (OSC) is pleased to announce that we are now 
offering Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)-approved Marine Mammal 
Observer (MMO) training courses.



JNCC-certified MMOs comply with UK regulations to minimise the risk of injury 
and disturbance to marine mammals from piling, explosives, and geophysical 
surveys.



OSC's JNCC-approved MMO course includes lectures and discussion in an intensive 
one-day training course. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the courses will 
temporarily be provided online, and when possible, in person at OSC's 
headquarters in Dunbar, Scotland where it will include practical elements of 
binocular and range estimation training at Dunbar Harbour, as well as practical 
role-play sessions.



Our instructors are highly experienced MMOs, and will be delighted to help you 
achieve your career goals. Please visit our website 
(https://www.osc.co.uk/training/) for more details.



Our next course will be 29 June 2021. The cost of which is £220 per person. 
This cost includes provision of a copy of the 'Marine Mammal Observer and 
Passive Acoustic Monitoring Handbook' for each participant.


--
Admin Team
Ocean Science Consulting Limited (OSC)
Spott Road, Dunbar, East Lothian, EH42 1RR, Scotland, UK
+44 (0)1368 865 722​
W:
 www.osc.co.uk
.
MMO or PAM requirement?
We wrote the book. Now available on Amazon:
www.marinemammalobserverhandbook.com
___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] New publication: an increase in the detection rate of the Critically Endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise

[Ms Kylie Owen]

Hey everyone,

My coauthors and I are pleased to announce the publication of a new article 
showing an increase in the detection rate of the Critically Endangered Baltic 
Proper harbour porpoise in Swedish waters.

Owen K, Sköld M, Carlström J (2021) An increase in detection rates of the 
critically endangered Baltic Proper harbor porpoise in Swedish waters in recent 
years. Conservation Science and Practice, e468,https://doi.org/10./csp2.468



Abstract: The Baltic Proper harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is currently 
listed as critically endangered (CR), with the Static Acoustic Monitoring of 
the Baltic Sea Harbor Porpoise (SAMBAH) project concluding that only ~500 
individuals remain. This population has a distribution that spans the waters of 
nine countries, making regular abundance estimates and management action 
challenging. Given the continued decline of other depleted porpoises, namely 
the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), the question is often raised about whether 
management action would even have a positive impact, or whether it is too late 
for population recovery. When abundance estimates are sparse over time, 
monitoring programs at key sites are likely to serve as the best indication of 
population trends, and may provide an early indication of changes at the 
population level. We compared passive acoustic monitoring data from 12 stations 
that were utilized both in the SAMBAH project (2011–2013) and as a part of the 
Swedish National Monitoring Program (2017–2020) to determine trends in 
detection rates. There was a 29% increase in mean daily detection rate during 
May–October (over the breeding season) between the two study periods. At the 
three stations with the highest number of detections, log linear regression 
revealed a yearly increase of 2.4% between 2011 and 2019 (−4.4–9.6, 95% CI). 
This may be indicative of the beginnings of population recovery, or simply an 
indication that the decline has stalled. The rate of increase is still well 
below what is likely to be possible for porpoise populations, and unlikely to 
buffer against any potential increase in pressures in the future. We therefore 
call for urgent management action to remove threats and protect this CR 
population, the only resident cetacean in the Baltic region, in order to give 
it the best chance of recovery.

The article is open access and available here:

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10./csp2.468

 If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.

Kind Regards

Kylie Owen


___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] Fall and Winter Internships

[Erich Dietterle]

Hi MARMAM community,

I would like to announce internship opportunities with Atlantic Marine 
Conservation Society for the upcoming fall and winter based out of Long Island, 
New York.

Sea Turtle and Marine Mammal Internship Program

Atlantic Marine Conservation Society (AMSEAS) is a 501 © 3 not-for-profit 
organization dedicated to promoting conservation of our marine environment 
through action. Our overall goals are to: understand the overall status of sea 
turtle and marine mammal populations in the Northwest Atlantic, investigate 
stranding occurrences in relation to wild population status, understand the 
impacts of development and human activity on wild populations and strandings, 
and to increase public participation in conservation efforts. Some of our 
action items to reach these goals include data research, surveys and health 
assessments, involvement in the Specially Trained Animal Response Team, 
response to entangled and out-of-habitat animals, necropsies, beach monitoring, 
public outreach, and education. The following internship opportunities are just 
some of the ways in which students can become involved with AMSEAS and gain 
experience within the marine mammal and sea turtle stranding network.

Application Instructions:

1.  Apply by filling out an application on our website: 
http://www.amseas.org/volunteer/


2.  Send a cover letter, resume, and have three letters of recommendation 
(two being academic) sent to either 
respo...@amseas.org, or to PO Box 932, Hampton 
Bays, NY 11946

*These are unpaid internships. Earning course credit for these opportunities is 
required to be considered as an intern.

Conservation Research Program

Join our conservation efforts through a Conservation Research Internship. 
Conduct beach monitoring events including beach clean ups, cold stunned sea 
turtle monitoring, and seal surveys. Work with previously collected data to 
help bring a better understanding of the animals and debris found within Long 
Island’s marine habitats,
Specific projects include:


  1.  Pinniped Population Documentation: Work with the team to conduct boat- 
and land-based seal surveys. Observe and record environmental conditions and 
animals sighted. Take photographs to identify any animals sighted down to the 
species level.
  2.  GIS/ Database Management: Develop database for storing stranding, survey, 
and satellite tracking data. Map strandings real time for monthly stranding 
trend review, and keep the team up to date with real time stranding trends. Map 
satellite tagged animals and input data from tags into the database.
  3.  Wild Population Surveys: Work with biologists on data collected from 
aerial, land, and boat-based surveys. Maintain data entry for these trips, 
learn about conducting and leading each type of survey, and work with 
photographs collected from surveys to count animals and identify natural or 
human caused injuries.
  4.  Marine Debris Documentation: Lead two beach cleanup activities per week, 
one north shore beach one south shore beach. Educate the public on the harms of 
marine debris and data collection techniques. Record data from each site, 
compile at the end of internship to compare amount collected at each site and 
difference in items collected. Create marine debris content to be used on 
AMSEAS website and presented at educational opportunities.

Skills important to the internship are attention to detail, the ability to work 
individually or as a part of a team, and the ability to train and lead small 
groups for beach monitoring efforts.

Our objectives are to train students to successfully monitor the beaches of our 
local marine environment and collect data to help gain a better understanding 
of these individual landscapes and their properties. Students will also receive 
training in what to do in the case of marine mammal and sea turtle sightings 
and strandings. This internship will provide students with firsthand knowledge 
on the impacts of marine debris on our environment, will allow them to quantify 
and qualify the marine debris specific to individual beaches, and how to 
involve our communities in taking action to make a positive impact. Data 
collected will contribute to efforts in mitigation.

Education Program

Work with our Education and Outreach Team to promote an informed community that 
is aware of our marine environment and its inhabitants, our human impact, and 
how to impact the environment in a positive way. Help us with our outreach 
efforts by conducting community beach clean ups, and education programs geared 
to a variety of ages through an Education Internship.
Skills required for this internship include the ability to communicate in 
writing and in public speaking, and a basic knowledge of environmental science.

Our objectives are to provide students with hands on education experience in a 
variety of outlets and audiences. Students will train to communicate wi

[MARMAM] Flukebook.org: Release v.2021-04-30

[Jason Holmberg]

We are pleased to announce the Wildbook software release v.2021-04-30,
which is reflected in the Flukebook.org platform for cetacean photo ID.

 Wildbook DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4776841
 Wildbook Image Analysis (WBIA) DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4477622

For an overview of Flukebook's multi-species, multi-modal machine learning
for photo ID, please see:

https://docs.wildme.org/docs/researchers/ia_pipeline

Community support for Wildbook is provided at:

https://community.wildme.org


Release notes for April 2021

**Flukebook New Features**

-Improved google maps display for GPS coordinates.

-Users can cycle through annotations in an Encounter Gallery image,
allowing for easier navigation and clearer understanding.

-Added additional data formats for bulk import of genetic data (genotype).

** General Wildbook Bug Fixes **
-WB-1606 Special characters now better supported in Sighting IDs.

-WB-1604 Non-primary annotations now display correctly in IA results.

-WB-1602 Bulk import option to send to detection no longer sends to
identification as well.

-WB-1598 Bulk imports detection operations no longer resulting in periodic
missing detections.

-WB-1591 Bulk imports no longer stripping special characters from all
strings.

-WB-1569 Encounter.occurrenceRemarks no longer getting imported twice.

-WB-1539 Submission page no longer defaults to expensive all-location ID
jobs.

-WB-1537 Missing images no longer returning an error.

WB-1196 Inspect links on IAResults are no longer displayed if there are no
visualized computer vision results associated (per algorithm).

WB-652 Media assets added via the encounter page now display correctly.

**Wildbook-IA Release Notes (Machine Learning)**

The following updates were made to WBIA last month.

SAGE-252 Added ID support with CurvRank V2 on fin whales and grey whales,
including a new multi-species dorsal detector [also SAGE-45].

SAGE-248 New detection support for grey seals (Halichoerus grypus), trained
as a multi-species seal detector.

**Bug Fixes**
- SAGE-259 Fix data migration issue from Flukebook.

 - SAGE-261 Updated automatic security alert rules for secure storage
volumes.



Jason Holmberg (he/him/his)

Executive Director, Wild Me 

A.I. and humans combating extinction together.
___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] New publication: Shifting trends - Detecting changes in cetacean population dynamics in shifting habitat

[Charlotte Boyd]

Dear Colleagues

We are pleased to announce the publication of our new paper: Boyd C, Punt AE. 
2021. Shifting trends: Detecting changes in cetacean population dynamics in 
shifting habitat. PLoS ONE 16(5): e0251522. 
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251522

Abstract: The ability to monitor population dynamics and detect major changes 
in population trend is essential for wildlife conservation and management. 
However, this is often challenging for cetaceans as surveys typically cover 
only a portion of a population’s range and conventional stock assessment 
methods cannot then distinguish whether apparent changes in abundance reflect 
real changes in population size or shifts in distribution. We developed and 
tested methods for estimating population size and trend and detecting changes 
in population trend in the context of shifting habitat by integrating 
additional data into distance-sampling analysis. Previous research has shown 
that incorporating habitat information can improve population size estimates 
for highly mobile species with dynamic spatial distributions. Here, using 
simulated datasets representative of a large whale population, we demonstrate 
that incorporating individual mark-recapture data can increase the accuracy and 
precision of trend estimation and the power to distinguish whether apparent 
changes in abundance reflect changes in population trend or distribution 
shifts. We recommend that similar simulation studies are conducted for specific 
cetacean populations to assess the potential for detecting changes in 
population dynamics given available data. This approach is especially important 
wherever population change may be confounded with long-term change in 
distribution patterns associated with regime shifts or climate change.

Charlotte Boyd PhD (she/her)
boydc...@u.washington.edu
___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] Volunteering/Internship for students in Baltic Sea - harbor porpoises

[Isabella Kratzer]

Dear MARMAM-members,

we have an exciting opportunity coming up for (student) volunteers/interns this 
summer. We will be conducting a behavior study on the beautiful island Fyn in 
Denmark where we will observe harbor porpoises around gillnets and modified 
gillnets. The goal is to find out how they react to acoustically visible 
gillnets compared to standard nets and whether our modification have the 
potential to reduce bycatch of porpoises as they avoid the nets. 
The experiment will take place from 20/06/2021 - 31/08/2021.
Duties and learning opportunities comprise:
- observing porpoises from a cliff using a theodolite
- observing porpoises from the boat
- setting/hauling of gillnets
- setting/hauling of acoustic equipment such as CPODs and SoundTraps
- data retrieval and first analysis from the above mentioned equipment

Room and board (and hopefully lots of beautiful and memorable porpoise 
moments!) will be provided, unfortunately there is no monetary compensation. 
You will be sharing a room with another volunteer. 
We do our best to provide a relaxed and fun working atmosphere and expect that 
our volunteers are also motivated to contribute to a pleasent experience for 
everybody. 

Please include a short motivation letter, the period during which you would 
like to participate and one thing that you would like to learn during your stay.

Looking forward to hearing from you - if you have any questions please feel 
free to send an email.
Kind regards,

Isabella

More information on the project:
https://www.thuenen.de/en/of/projects/fisheries-and-survey-technology/using-acoustically-visible-gillnets-to-reduce-bycatch-of-harbor-porpoises/

Some video footage from 2018:
https://vimeo.com/318714410

Everything you ever wanted to know about pearls:
https://vimeo.com/332618067


Disclaimer: everything is of course dependent on the current COVID-19 situation 
which may change very suddenly. Right now, we are very hopeful that everything 
will go smoothly, but the past months have shown us all that sudden changes are 
always possible.

-- 
Isabella Kratzer 
Thünen-Institut für Ostseefischerei/Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries 
Alter Hafen Süd 2 
18069 Rostock (Germany) 

Tel.: +49 (0)381 66099-147 
Fax: +49 381 8116 199 
Mail: isabella.krat...@thuenen.de 
Web: www.thuenen.de/of/ 

Das Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut, Bundesforschungsinstitut für 
Ländliche Räume, Wald und Fischerei – kurz: Thünen-Institut – besteht 
aus 14 Fachinstituten, die in den Bereichen Ökonomie, Ökologie und 
Technologie forschen und die Politik beraten. 

The Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute, Federal Research Institute for 
Rural Areas, Forestry and Fisheries – Thünen Institute in brief – consists 
of 14 specialized institutes that carry out research and provide policy advice 
in the fields of economy, ecology and technology.

___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] New publication on the carbon cycling role of marine vertebrates

[Heidi Pearson]

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of my co-authors, I'm pleased to announce our paper just
published in One Earth entitled, "Integral functions of marine vertebrates
in the ocean carbon cycle and climate change mitigation". This is a
comprehensive review of the role of marine mammals and other marine
vertebrates in carbon cycling, which has implications for conservation and
climate change strategies.

Summary:
In the last decade, the ocean has absorbed a quarter of the Earth’s
greenhouse gas emissions through the carbon (C) cycle, a naturally
occurring process. Aspects of the ocean C cycle are now being incorporated
into climate change mitigation and adaptation plans. Currently, too little
is known about marine vertebrate C functions for their inclusion in
policies. Fortunately, marine vertebrate biology, behavior, and ecology
through the lens of C and nutrient cycling and flux is an emerging area of
research that is rich in existing data. This review uses literature and
trusted data sources to describe marine vertebrate C interactions, provides
quantification where possible, and highlights knowledge gaps. Implications
of better understanding the integral functions of marine vertebrates in the
ocean C cycle include the need for consideration of these functions both in
policies on nature-based climate change mitigation and adaptation, and in
management of marine vertebrate populations.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332221002384

kind regards,
Heidi

Heidi Pearson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marine Biology
University of Alaska Southeast
11066 Auke Lake Way, AND 1
Juneau, AK 99801
Phone: 907.796.6271
___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam

[MARMAM] New publication on an uncommon stranding event of bottlenose dolphins in San Diego, CA

[Kerri Danil - NOAA Federal]

We are pleased to announce our new publication:

Danil, K, N. Beaulieu-McCoy, S. Dennison, D. Rotstein, T. Rowles, S.
Wilkin. 2021. Uncommon Stranding Event of Bottlenose Dolphins (*Tursiops
truncatus*) in San Diego, California (October 2015). NOAA Tech. Memo.
NMFS-SWFSC-641, 26 p.

https://swfsc-publications.fisheries.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-641.pdf

Executive Summary
Two freshly dead, adult coastal common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops
truncatus), stranded one mile apart from each other on Silver Strand State
Beach in Coronado, San Diego County, California on October 21, 2015. On
this same day, the U.S. Department of the Navy began a major training
exercise (MTE). Ten days later, an additional adult T. truncatus stranded
dead in advanced decomposition along the same beach. The spatial and
temporal similarities of the strandings represented an unusual occurrence
for the region.

Post-mortem examinations revealed that all three dolphins were in robust
body condition, had no external signs of fishery interaction, and presented
with subcutaneous hemorrhage in the head region concentrated along the
lower jaws, with subcutaneous emphysema associated with areas of cervical
blubber hemorrhage. Hemoabdomen, gas bubbles within the mesenteric and
cerebral vasculature, and evidence of recent feeding were observed in both
dolphins that were examined in greatest detail. Additionally, cerebral
hemorrhage and hemopericardium was observed in one specimen and scant
lipids in the lungs of another. The combined findings indicate that the
dolphins were exposed to acute, severe trauma, likely anthropogenic in
nature.

Based on previous case studies, an underwater detonation, peracute
underwater entrapment (PUE) (e.g. net entanglement) or mid-frequency active
(MFA) sonar are the most plausible explanations for the observed trauma.
However, no underwater detonations were reported as part of the MTE. Three
coastal fisheries that target squid, bait, and lobster operate in October
that could potentially entrap a coastal T. truncatus. However, no squid
fishery vessels were operating off San Diego during this time, no bait
fishing activity the day preceding the strandings occurred, and lobster
pots are unlikely to entrap 3 dolphins at one time. An illegal U.S. fishery
or nearshore Mexican fishery could be an alternate source of PUE. MFA sonar
was in use on October 19 and 20, with the closest Navy ship within 6 NM of
the stranding location. Although MFA sonar seems the most likely source of
the observed trauma, PUE from an unidentified fishery or unknown source
remain a possibility.


-- 

Kerri Danil (she/her/hers)

Research Biologist, Southwest Fisheries Science Center

NOAA Fisheries | U.S. Department of Commerce

Cell: (858) 366-2667

Stranding hotline: (858) 546-7162

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/cetacean-health-life-history-program
https://swfsc-publications.fisheries.noaa.gov/publications/?search=danil
___
MARMAM mailing list
MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca
https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam