Kaua'i Field Work Updates
February 20, 2025
Scientists from Cascadia Research Collective recently completed a ~9-day field project off Kaua’i that started on February 9th. This project is timed to occur prior to a Submarine Command Course (SCC) training event. The primary goal is to deploy satellite telemetry tags on multiple species of odontocete cetaceans prior to the SCC, to be able to examine their behavior before, during, and after the event. This approach has been very successful in the past as a way of examining how different species respond to Navy training activities including mid-frequency active sonar (MFAS). Click through the picture below to see daily updates.
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Kauai' Field Work Updates
February 16, 2024
Scientists from Cascadia Research Collective are leading a ~9-day field project off Kaua’i that started on February 11th.
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August 2022 Kaua‘i Field Project
August 18, 2022
Cascadia Research Collective began an 8-10 day field project off Kaua’i starting on August 16th. This project is timed to occur prior to a Submarine Command Course (SCC). Their primary goal is to deploy LIMPET satellite tags on one or more species of odontocete cetaceans prior to the SCC, to be able to examine their behavior before, during, and after the SCC. This approach has been very successful in the past as a way of examining how different species respond to Navy training activities including mid-frequency active sonar.
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Current
Pilot Project to Assess Feasibility of Multi-Sensor Tagging of Rough-Toothed Dolphins at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF)
Project Objectives
Determine feasibility and efficacy of deploying high resolution multi-sensor tags on rough-toothed dolphins at PMRF and determine how collected data can be used to move toward a better understanding of the effects of Navy activities, ultimately leading to PCoD modelling.
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Current
Visual Survey and Tagging of Hawaiian Odontocetes
Project Objectives
(1) define the spatial movement and habitat use patterns of species that are exposed to mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar (2) determine how these patterns influence exposure and potential responses
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Complete
Small vessel visual surveys in the Mariana Islands Range Complex
Project Objectives
Identify species of beaked whales, odontocetes, and baleen whales that occur in the Mariana Islands; Monitor marine mammal and sea turtle presence, distribution, and diversity in nearshore waters during key seasons (summer and winter); Develop a better understanding of marine mammal distribution, movement patterns, habitat use, population structure, and abundance; Develop reference library of visually-validated acoustic recordings of marine mammals.
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Current
Estimation of Received Levels of MFAS and Behavioral Response of Marine Mammals at PMRF
Project Objectives
Further our understanding of the Monitoring Questions: 1) What is the occurrence and estimated received levels of MFAS on 'blackfish', humpback, minke, sperm and Blainville's beaked whales within the PMRF instrumented range? and 2) What, if any, are the short term behavioral responses of 'blackfish,' humpback, minke, sperm and Blainville's beaked whales when exposed to MFAS/explosions at different levels/conditions at PMRF?
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Current
Jacksonville Shallow Water Training Range Vessel Surveys and M3R Species Verifications
Project Objectives
Monitor species composition and distribution on JSWTR, support M3R species verifications
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Date Published:
  • January 1, 2018

Passive acoustic monitoring was conducted using High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs) deployed in waters offshore of Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida with support from the US Navy during 2016 - 2017. The HARPs recorded underwater sounds between 10 Hz and 100 kHz. Data analysis consisted of analyst scans of long-term spectral averages (LTSAs) and spectrograms, and automated computer algorithm detection when possible. Three frequency bands were analyzed for marine mammal vocalizations and anthropogenic sounds: (1) Lowfrequency, between 10-1000 Hz, (2) Mid-frequency, between 1,000-5,000 Hz, and (3) Highfrequency, between 1-100 kHz.

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Date Published:
  • July 30, 2009

In support of the U.S. Navy’s (Navy) Marine Mammal Monitoring Plan (M3P) in the Southern California Range Complex (SOCAL) (DoN 2009), aerial surveys were conducted by Marine Mammal Research Consultants (MMRC) and Smultea Environmental Sciences (SES) to monitor marine mammals and sea turtles (MM/ST) during June and July 2009 in the SOCAL area.

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Effects of duty-cycled passive acoustic recordings on detecting the presence of beaked whales in the northwest Atlantic. Stanistreet, J.E., D.P. Nowacek, A.J. Read, S. Baumann-Pickering, H.B. Moors-Murphy, and S.M. Van Parijs. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2026. 140(1):EL31-EL37
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Date Published:
  • March 2, 2026

This study investigated the effects of using duty-cycled passive acoustic recordings to monitor the daily presence of beaked whale species at three locations in the northwest Atlantic. Continuous acoustic records were subsampled to simulate duty cycles of 50%, 25%, and 10% and cycle period durations from 10 to 60 min. Short, frequent listening periods were most effective for assessing the daily presence of beaked whales. Furthermore, subsampling at low duty cycles led to consistently greater underestimation of Mesoplodon species than either Cuvier's beaked whales or northern bottlenose whales, leading to a potential bias in estimation of relative species occurrence.

Publication:Ocean:Region:Species:Methods:
Using passive acoustic monitoring to document the distribution of beaked whale species in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Stanistreet, J.E., D.P. Nowacek, S. Baumann-Pickering, J. Bell, D.M. Cholewiak, J.A. Hildebrand, L.E.W. Hodge, H. Moors-Murphy, S.M. Van Parijs, A.J. Read. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 2017. 74(12): 2098-2109. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0503
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Date Published:
  • December 1, 2017

Little is known about the ecology of many beaked whale species, despite concerns raised by mass strandings linked to certain sources of anthropogenic noise. Here, we used passive acoustic monitoring to examine spatial and temporal patterns in beaked whale occurrence at six locations along the continental slope in the western North Atlantic Ocean.

Publication:Ocean:Region:Species:Methods:
Monitoring the acoustic ecology of the shelf break of Georges Bank, Northwestern Atlantic Ocean: new approaches to visualizing complex acoustic data. Weiss, S.G., D. Cholewiak, K.E. Frasier, J.S. Trickey, S. Baumann-Pickering, J.A. Hildebrand, and S.M. Van Parijs. Marine Policy. 2021. Volume 130. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104570
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Date Published:
  • August 1, 2021

This study aims to assess the co-occurrence of cetaceans and anthropogenic activities, presenting simple and accessible visualizations of the temporal and spectral overlap.

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