Supporting the Ocean Noise Reference Station Network with Underwater Acoustic Monitoring at the National Park of American Samoa
Project ID: P14AC01456
Federal Agency: National Park Service
Partner Institution: Oregon State University
Fiscal Year: 2014
Initial Funding: $15,959
Total Funding: $15,959
Project Type: Research
Project Disciplines: Biological
National Park: National Park of American Samoa
Principal Investigator: Klinck, Holger
Agreement Technical Representative: DiDonato, Eva
Abstract: Underwater noise generated by anthropogenic activities (especially commercial shipping and seismic oil and gas exploration) is increasingly being recognized as a potential threat to marine life, especially marine mammals which are protected in the U.S. by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. Current scientific data suggest that increased ambient noise levels impact marine mammals by hindering communication, altering communcation behavior, altering locomotive behavior, and inducing stress. Additional concerns associated with the degraded acoustic quality of diverse habitats broaden these concerns to include possible repercussions for fish and invertebrate species, many of which are managed as commerically-harvested species, protected as resources within sanctuaries, or studied as key elements to sustaining healthy ecosystems. For these reasons it is important for science-based regulatory agencies, like NOAA and NPS, to monitor long-term trends and changes in the ambient sound field. However, consistent and comparable multi-year acoustic data sets covering all majore regions of the U.S. do not exist. Here we propose to initiate a collaborative effort between Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), all National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Science Centers, three of the sites within the National Marine Sanctuary System and one in NPS waters to estables an Ocean Noise Reference Stations Network to collect these very important and valuable acoustic long-term data sets. This collaborative project between NPS and OSU is to secure an Ocean Noise Reference Stations for NPS at Ofu Atoll with the Natinoal Park of America Samoa.
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