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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 157 / Wednesday, August 18, 2021 / Notices syllabus, and course reference material as well as a document stating successful completion of the course;
NMFS shall have one week to approve PSOs from the time that the necessary information is submitted, after which PSOs meeting the minimum requirements shall automatically be considered approved;
PSOs must successfully complete relevant training, including completion of all required coursework and passing 80 percent or greater a written and/or oral examination developed for the training program;
PSOs must have successfully attained a bachelors degree from an accredited college or university with a major in one of the natural sciences, a minimum of 30 semester hours or equivalent in the biological sciences, and at least one undergraduate course in math or statistics; and The educational requirements may be waived if the PSO has acquired the relevant skills through alternate experience. Requests for such a waiver shall be submitted to NMFS and must include written justification. Requests shall be granted or denied with justification by NMFS within one week of receipt of submitted information.
Alternate experience that may be considered includes, but is not limited to 1 secondary education and/or experience comparable to PSO duties;
2 previous work experience conducting academic, commercial, or government-sponsored protected species surveys; or 3 previous work experience as a PSO; the PSO should demonstrate good standing and consistently good performance of PSO
duties. Traditional ecological knowledge is also a relevant consideration.
For data collection purposes, PSOs shall use standardized data collection forms, whether hard copy or electronic.
PSOs shall record detailed information about any implementation of mitigation requirements, including the distance of animals to the acoustic source and description of specific actions that ensued, the behavior of the animals, any observed changes in behavior before and after implementation of mitigation, and if shutdown was implemented, the length of time before any subsequent ramp-up of the acoustic source. If required mitigation was not implemented, PSOs should record a description of the circumstances. At a minimum, the following information must be recorded:
Vessel names source vessel and other vessels associated with survey and call signs;
PSO names and affiliations;

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Dates of departures and returns to port with port name;
Date and participants of PSO
briefings;
Dates and times Greenwich Mean Time of survey effort and times corresponding with PSO effort;
Vessel location latitude/longitude when survey effort began and ended and vessel location at beginning and end of visual PSO duty shifts;
Vessel heading and speed at beginning and end of visual PSO duty shifts and upon any line change;
Environmental conditions while on visual survey at beginning and end of PSO shift and whenever conditions changed significantly, including BSS
and any other relevant weather conditions including cloud cover, fog, sun glare, and overall visibility to the horizon;
Factors that may have contributed to impaired observations during each PSO shift change or as needed as environmental conditions changed e.g., vessel traffic, equipment malfunctions;
and Survey activity information, such as acoustic source power output while in operation, number and volume of airguns operating in the array, tow depth of the array, and any other notes of significance i.e., pre-clearance, rampup, shutdown, testing, shooting, rampup completion, end of operations, streamers, etc..
The following information should be recorded upon visual observation of any protected species:
Watch status sighting made by PSO
on/off effort, opportunistic, crew, alternate vessel/platform;
PSO who sighted the animal;
Time of sighting;
Vessel location at time of sighting;
Water depth;
Direction of vessels travel compass direction;
Direction of animals travel relative to the vessel;
Pace of the animal;
Estimated distance to the animal and its heading relative to vessel at initial sighting;
Identification of the animal e.g., genus/species, lowest possible taxonomic level, or unidentified and the composition of the group if there is a mix of species;
Estimated number of animals high/
low/best;
Estimated number of animals by cohort adults, yearlings, juveniles, calves, group composition, etc.;
Description as many distinguishing features as possible of each individual seen, including length, shape, color, pattern, scars or markings, shape and
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size of dorsal fin, shape of head, and blow characteristics;
Detailed behavior observations e.g., number of blows/breaths, number of surfaces, breaching, spyhopping, diving, feeding, traveling; as explicit and detailed as possible; note any observed changes in behavior;
Animals closest point of approach CPA and/or closest distance from any element of the acoustic source;
Platform activity at time of sighting e.g., deploying, recovering, testing, shooting, data acquisition, other; and Description of any actions implemented in response to the sighting e.g., delays, shutdown, ramp-up and time and location of the action.
Reporting A report will be submitted to NMFS
within 90 days after the end of the cruise. The report will describe the operations that were conducted and sightings of marine mammals near the operations. The report will provide full documentation of methods, results, and interpretation pertaining to all monitoring. The 90-day report will summarize the dates and locations of seismic operations, and all marine mammal sightings dates, times, locations, activities, associated seismic survey activities.
The draft report shall also include geo-referenced time-stamped vessel tracklines for all time periods during which airguns were operating.
Tracklines should include points recording any change in airgun status e.g., when the airguns began operating, when they were turned off, or when they changed from full array to single gun or vice versa. GIS files shall be provided in ESRI shapefile format and include the UTC date and time, latitude in decimal degrees, and longitude in decimal degrees. All coordinates shall be referenced to the WGS84 geographic coordinate system. In addition to the report, all raw observational data shall be made available to NMFS. The report must summarize the data collected as described above and in the IHA. A final report must be submitted within 30 days following resolution of any comments on the draft report.
Reporting Injured or Dead Marine Mammals Discovery of injured or dead marine mammalsIn the event that personnel involved in survey activities covered by the authorization discover an injured or dead marine mammal, the UAGI shall report the incident to the Office of Protected Resources OPR, NMFS, and the NMFS Alaska Regional Stranding Coordinator as soon as feasible. The
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