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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 106 / Friday, June 4, 2021 / Proposed Rules monitoring and reporting of such taking.
The MMPA implementing regulations at 50 CFR 216.104a13 indicate that requests for authorizations must include the suggested means of accomplishing the necessary monitoring and reporting that will result in increased knowledge of the species and of the level of taking or impacts on populations of marine mammals that are expected to be present in the proposed action area.
Effective reporting is critical both to compliance as well as ensuring that the most value is obtained from the required monitoring.
Monitoring and reporting requirements prescribed by NMFS
should contribute to improved understanding of one or more of the following:
Occurrence of marine mammal species or stocks in the area in which take is anticipated e.g., presence, abundance, distribution, density;
Nature, scope, or context of likely marine mammal exposure to potential stressors/impacts individual or cumulative, acute or chronic, through better understanding of: 1 Action or environment e.g., source characterization, propagation, ambient noise; 2 affected species e.g., life history, dive patterns; 3 co-occurrence of marine mammal species with the action; or 4 biological or behavioral context of exposure e.g., age, calving or feeding areas;
Individual marine mammal responses behavioral or physiological to acoustic stressors acute, chronic, or cumulative, other stressors, or cumulative impacts from multiple stressors;
How anticipated responses to stressors impact either: 1 Long-term fitness and survival of individual marine mammals; or 2 populations, species, or stocks;
Effects on marine mammal habitat e.g., marine mammal prey species, acoustic habitat, or other important physical components of marine mammal habitat; and Mitigation and monitoring effectiveness.
NEFSC must designate a compliance coordinator who must be responsible for ensuring compliance with all requirements of any LOA issued pursuant to these regulations and for preparing for any subsequent requests for incidental take authorization.
Since the 2016 final rule, NEFSC has made its training, operations, data collection, animal handling, and sampling protocols more systematic in order to improve its ability to understand how mitigation measures influence interaction rates and ensure
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its research operations are conducted in an informed manner and consistent with lessons learned from those with experience operating these gears in close proximity to marine mammals. In addition, NMFS has established a formal incidental take reporting system, the PSIT database, requiring that incidental takes of protected species be reported within 48 hours of the occurrence. The PSIT generates automated messages to agency leadership and other relevant staff and alerts them to the event and that updated information describing the circumstances of the event have been inputted into the database. It is in this spirit that we propose the monitoring requirements described below.
Visual Monitoring Marine mammal watches are a standard part of conducting fisheries research activities and are implemented as described previously in Proposed Mitigation. Dedicated marine mammal visual monitoring occurs as described 1 for some period prior to deployment of most research gear; 2 throughout deployment and active fishing of all research gears; 3 for some period prior to retrieval of longline gear; and 4
throughout retrieval of all research gear.
This visual monitoring is performed by trained NEFSC personnel or other trained crew during the monitoring period. Observers record the species and estimated number of animals present and their behaviors. This may provide valuable information towards an understanding of whether certain species may be attracted to vessels or certain survey gears. Separately, personnel on watch those navigating the vessel and other crew; these will typically not be NEFSC personnel monitor for marine mammals at all times when the vessel is being operated.
The primary focus for this type of watch is to avoid striking marine mammals and to generally avoid navigational hazards. These personnel on watch typically have other duties associated with navigation and other vessel operations and are not required to record or report to the scientific party data on marine mammal sightings, except when gear is being deployed, soaking, or retrieved or when marine mammals are observed in the path of the ship during transit.
NEFSC will also monitor disturbance of hauled out pinnipeds resulting from the presence of researchers, paying particular attention to the distance at which pinnipeds are disturbed.
Disturbance will be recorded according to the three-point scale, representing
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increasing seal response to disturbance, as shown in Table 15.
Training NMFS considers the proposed suite of monitoring and operational procedures to be necessary to avoid adverse interactions with protected species and still allow NEFSC to fulfill its scientific missions. However, some mitigation measures such as the move-on rule require judgments about the risk of gear interactions with protected species and the best procedures for minimizing that risk on a case-by-case basis. Vessel operators and Chief Scientists are charged with making those judgments at sea. They are all highly experienced professionals but there may be inconsistencies across the range of research surveys conducted and funded by NEFSC in how those judgments are made. In addition, some of the mitigation measures described above could also be considered best practices for safe seamanship and avoidance of hazards during fishing e.g., prior surveillance of a sample site before setting trawl gear. At least for some of the research activities considered, explicit links between the implementation of these best practices and their usefulness as mitigation measures for avoidance of protected species may not have been formalized and clearly communicated with all scientific parties and vessel operators.
NMFS therefore proposes a series of improvements to NEFSC protected species training, awareness, and reporting procedures. NMFS expects these new procedures will facilitate and improve the implementation of the mitigation measures described above.
NEFSC will continue to use the process for its Chief Scientists and vessel operators to communicate with each other about their experiences with marine mammal interactions during research work with the goal of improving decision-making regarding avoidance of adverse interactions. As noted above, there are many situations where professional judgment is used to decide the best course of action for avoiding marine mammal interactions before and during the time research gear is in the water. The intent of this mitigation measure is to draw on the collective experience of people who have been making those decisions, provide a forum for the exchange of information about what went right and what went wrong, and try to determine if there are any rules-of-thumb or key factors to consider that would help in future decisions regarding avoidance practices. NEFSC would coordinate not only among its staff and vessel captains
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