IMIS

The United States (US) Navy has proposed constructing an Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR) along the US Atlantic coast. The preferred site is an area of 1,713 km2 in Onslow Bay, 87 km from the coast of North Carolina. We have established a monitoring program designed to estimate density and document distribution and seasonal residency of marine mammals and sea turtles in the proposed USWTR. We have established ten 40 nm long transect lines, spaced approximately 5 nm apart. These ten transect lines are surveyed by both shipboard (Duke University Marine Lab) and aerial platforms (conducted by University of North Carolina Wilmington). The survey area incorporates a variety of habitats from shallow waters of the shelf to the continental slope; the Gulf Stream meanders through the eastern portion of the survey area, flowing towards the northeast. The surveys began in June 2007 and are on-going. The primary objectives of these surveys are to:

1. document species occurrence, estimate densities, and examine patterns of residency of marine mammals and turtles in the defined study area,
2. conduct seabird counts concurrent with the visual surveys, and
3. supplement the visual surveys with acoustic monitoring using a towed hydrophone array.

The towed array will facilitate compilation of an acoustic library of species-specific recordings. This is a collaborative project with University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment, Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, University of St. Andrews, Scotland.