Project

“Independent Advisory Team for

Marine Mammal Assessments”

Atlantic Scientific Review Group Annual Meeting

5-7 February 2014

Woods Hole, MA

Dr. Paula Moreno

Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

What is SCeMFiS?

A National Science Foundation Industry/University

Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC)

Academic-Industry Partnerships at NSF

“I/UCRCs … a new era of partnership between universities and

industry, featuring high-quality, industrially relevant fundamental

research, strong industrial support of and collaboration in research and

education” http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/

SCeMFiS: first I/UCRC dedicated to fisheries research

http://www.SCeMFiS.org

NSF considers an “Industry” Partner to be any:

- Private company

- Publicly-traded company

- Trade organization

- Non-profit group

- Government (federal, state, or local) agency

Academic Institutions:

University of Southern Mississippi (Lead)

Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Partner)

What is an Industry Partner?

What is SCeMFiS? Center Rationale:

Develop research essential for the sustainable

management of shellfish and finfish resources

Data

Collection

Sampling

Design

Assessment

Modeling

Science Agenda Targets

Fisheries

Performance

Bycatch

Reduction

Management

Strategy

Evaluation

What is SCeMFiS? Current Research Portfolio: ~10 projects

- Juvenile survey for Surf clams

- Optimization of survey methodology for Black Sea Bass

- Marine mammal independent advisory team

Assessment

Modeling

MM-Fisheries

interactions

Members Motivation: Support research leading to reduced

uncertainty associated with some components of SA

Research Motivation: Examine current technical challenges

in estimating SA parameters and MM-fisheries interactions

=> Supplementary to SAR/SRG efforts

SCeMFiS Science Components

Supporting SA Needs Supplemental resources to address technical aspects

Stock structure: use of proxies (e.g., habitat,

abundance) when insufficient biological information (Moore and Merrick, 2011)

Abundance and PBR over broad areas: interpolation to

fill gaps (e.g., survey coverage) (Moore and Merrick, 2011)

Human-caused mortality/SI: identify fraction of stock

range subject to highest level (Moore and Merrick, 2011)

PBR = Nmin * 0.5 Rmax * Fr

Population Trends

Examples of SAR

Requirements for each

stock: Human-caused mortality/SI

“… the ASRG recommends that NOAA Fisheries

continue to explore alternative approaches to monitoring,

particularly for species that are not amenable to

traditional visual line transect surveys.”

(Atlantic Scientific Review Group, 1 April 2013)

“… the Commission recommended that the Service

develop alternative strategies for collecting information

on mortality and serious-injury levels in fisheries for

which entanglements are difficult to detect or quantify

using traditional observer programs.”

(MMC Annual Report for 2010-2011)

Supporting SA Needs

New Opportunities: Big Data Era Vessel Monitoring System

Yottabite Source: Fisheries and Oceans Canada

http://www.nfl.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/e0010178

New Approaches and Modeling Advances

Project Goals

Assemble SA expert team

Strengthen team’s base knowledge of

challenges in SA of marine mammal

Atlantic stocks => seeking input from

SRG, NMFS, MMC, TRTs, etc.

Provide research recommendations to

SCeMFiS’s science agenda

✔

Research Team

Paula Moreno (PI), Ph.D. in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences (Texas

A&M Univ.); Research Scientist (Univ. Southern Mississippi)

John Brandon, Ph.D. in Aquatic & Fisheries Sciences (Univ. of

Washington); Marine Stock Assessment Scientist

André Punt, Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Univ. of Cape Town);

Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (Univ. of

Washington)

Randall Reeves, Ph.D. in Geography (McGill Univ.); Consultant

Okapi Wildlife Assoc.; Marine Mammal Expert

Project Management and

Evaluation Principal Researcher: Develops proposal; directs project;

reports progress to Center. Point of contact for interested parties

(Paula Moreno)

Industry Liaison: Follows project progress and provides

information to ensure project goals are met (Greg DiDomenico)

NSF Evaluator: Independent professional evaluator assigned by

NSF to ensure SCeMFiS performance consistent with high

standards set by NSF (Donald Davis)

Big Data, but… “The data may not contain the answer.

The combination of some data and an aching desire for an

answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be

extracted from a given body of data...” (Tukey, 1986)

… also the Right

Data & Methods

Source: Kellogg Magazine,

Northwestern University

This presentation is an account of work sponsored by

the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS)