WEBINAR: The sources and effects of marine noise on marine mammals

IMarEST TV recording by the Coastal Science & Engineering and Marine Mammals Special Interest Groups on the 29th November 2022. This webinar was hosted by the Groups' Chairs, Tim Chesher and Niru Dorrian respectively.

This webinar provides an overview of the regulatory considerations for industry operations, sources of marine noise, the physics of noise propagation, and numerical modelling used in assessing the effects on marine mammals. It concludes with a Q&A and open table discussion with workshop panellists and attendees.

About the Speakers

Maja Nimak-Wood CSci, CMarSci is an international consultant and marine mammal scientist with 20 years of experience in the field. Maja’s expertise includes marine mammal ecology and behaviour; impact assessments (EIA/HRA); bycatch; in-depth understanding of underwater noise impacts; marine wildlife licencing; MMO/PAM training; proficiency in marine mammal legislation and mitigation procedures throughout the world and industry experience in offshore wind, cables, nuclear and O&G.

Dr Kerri D. Seger has a biological oceanography PhD from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. Dr Seger's dissertation focused on soundscape parameterisation in grey and humpback whale habitats from Alaska to Mexico, density estimation of humpback whales using the sound pressure levels of their songs, and she established a global working group for documenting the social sound repertoires of humpback whales. She continued to a post-doc at the University of New Hampshire using ecological modelling to investigate the acoustic presence of odontocete species along the Arctic Corridor and empirical mode decomposition techniques to develop a new detection and classification set of algorithms. Kerri also established a passive acoustic monitoring station on Colombia's Pacific coast.

Liz Ferguson is the Chief Executive Officer for Ocean Science Analytics (OSA), an ocean science research and online technical training company. Liz began her bioacoustician career in the Marine Mammal and Turtle Group at Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA. She then migrated to the private sector and worked spent eight years at a passive acoustic field and analysis company, Bio-Waves, Inc., eventually becoming the Chief Operations Officer. She specializes in marine mammal bioacoustic research and marine spatial ecology. Liz founded Ocean Science Analytics in 2018 to leverage big ocean data in analytical methods, develop user-friendly tools to increase end-user interaction with ecological data, and support the training of others through online technical training. In addition to OSA, Liz is an Adjunct Professor of Biology at California State University.

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