Chapter VI — Effects of Pollution 



completed early in 1999, will be used by the Navy, 

 the Commission, the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service, the Minerals Management Service, and others 

 to identify critical research needs and determine 

 actions needed to ensure that anthropogenic noise does 

 not have significant adverse effects on marine mam- 

 mals or other components of the marine environment. 



Workshop on Criteria to Assess tlie 

 Effects of Anthropogenic Noise 



The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the 

 taking of marine mammals unless certain conditions 

 are met. The Act defines "take" to include "harass- 

 ment," which in turn is defined as "any act of pursuit, 

 torment, or annoyance which ... has the potential to 

 disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in 

 the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, 

 including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, 

 nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering." However, 

 noise-producing activities that may disrupt behavioral 

 patterns can be authorized under Section 101 (a)(5) of 

 the Act if they are unintentional, have a negligible 

 effect on the survival and productivity of the affected 

 species or populations, have no unmitigable adverse 

 impact on the availability of affected stocks taken by 

 Alaska Natives for subsistence purposes, and, if there 

 is uncertainty as to the possible effects, monitoring is 

 undertaken to ensure that any effects are negligible. 



The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish 

 and Wildlife Service are responsible for determining 

 when taking of species under their respective jurisdic- 

 tions can be authorized. The National Marine Fisher- 

 ies Service is attempting to develop criteria that can 

 be used to help make these determinations. Toward 

 this end, the Service held a workshop on 9-11 Sep- 

 tember 1998 to review relevant information and seek 

 the views of scientists with related expertise. The 

 workshop participants included experts in animal 

 bioacoustics, underwater propagation of sound, and 

 animal behavior. They considered and provided 

 views as to whether different criteria are needed for 

 different types of anthropogenic noise, the preferred 

 units for reporting source and received sound levels, 

 and other matters related to assessing the effects of 

 anthropogenic sound on marine mammals. 



Information gathered at the workshop will form the 

 basis for new guidelines or regulations to govern the 

 taking of marine mammals by sound from human 

 sources. The Service expects to make known the 

 results of its deliberations in the latter half of 1999. 



Workshop on the Possible Use of Active Sonar 

 to Reduce Right Whale Mortalities and 

 Injuries from Ship Strikes 



As noted in the northern right whale section in 

 Chapter II, the Navy provided support during the 

 winter of 1996-1997 for research to determine if 

 passive acoustic technology could detect and help 

 Navy ships avoid right whales in the species' calving 

 grounds off Florida and Georgia. The research was 

 designed to determine whether fixed and towed 

 hydrophone arrays could be used to detect and, by 

 triangulation, locate the position of vocalizing whales. 

 Although some whales were located, they vocalized 

 too infrequently to make the approach useful. 



By letter of 10 July 1997 the Commission com- 

 mended the Navy for its initiative. Noting the impor- 

 tance of minimizing right whale mortalities from ship 

 strikes and the apparently limited application of 

 passive acoustic technology, the Commission asked 

 the Navy to consider further testing to determine 

 whether placement of a network of active sonar buoys 

 along ship channels could be used to detect and enable 

 ships to avoid whales in the channel. 



Navy representatives subsequently advised the 

 Commission that they were willing to consider such 

 research and had recently received several related 

 research proposals for funding consideration. Recog- 

 nizing that sounds generated by active sonars could 

 affect marine mammals and other marine organisms, 

 the Navy believed that, before proceeding, steps 

 should be taken to ensure that any research that would 

 be supported is directed toward cost-effective applica- 

 tions and would not have unacceptable side effects. 



The Commission shared the Navy's concern and, 

 by letter of 12 November 1997, suggested that the 

 Navy consult with relevant experts to determine 

 minimum performance standards that would have to 

 be met for a sonar system to be judged practical and 



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