Abstract
This document was compiled by RWSC and Responsible Offshore Science Alliance (ROSA) staff at the request of the Protected Fish Species and Sea Turtle Subcommittees, and in collaboration with the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry Network (ACT), the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), and NOAA Fisheries.
This is a living document that will be updated by the Subcommittee as practices and technologies advance.
This document is also responsive to the needs and priorities articulated in the RWSC Science Plan, ROSA Offshore Wind Project Monitoring Framework and Guidelines, and several workshops and expert working group proceedings, including:
- RWSC Acoustic Telemetry Workshop, February 15, 2024, virtual
- ACT Network Meeting and Offshore Wind Workshop, June 3-6, 2024 in New Haven, CT
- NOAA Fisheries Draft Federal Survey Mitigation Plans
- Coastal Shark Bottom Longline Survey Mitigation Plan
- Cooperative Atlantic States Shark Pupping and Nursery (COASTSPAN) Survey Mitigation Plan
- Passive Acoustic Monitoring Survey Mitigation Plan (for acoustic telemetry receivers co-located with hydrophones)
- ROSA Report and Recommendations on Fisheries Resource Data Production, Storage, and Accessibility
The purpose of this document is to address the data collection, management, and storage phases of an acoustic telemetry project to ensure that while numerous individual entities may be deploying, collecting, and analyzing telemetry data as part of an offshore wind project’s required fisheries or protected species monitoring plan or voluntary research, the infrastructure and information exists to facilitate future meta-analyses and syntheses of telemetry data across the U.S. Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
This document is separated into three sections that correspond to a generic workflow for planning, deploying, and analyzing/interpreting acoustic telemetry data. Each section contains several detailed steps that were identified by ROSA and the RWSC Subcommittees.