In 1992, the Marine Mammal Protection Act established the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program (Title IV) which operates in support of the Recovered Protected Species goal of NMFS’s Strategic Plan. The Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) is the NMFS lead for the biomonitoring components and quality assurance of chemical analyses for the MMHSRP. Information generated by this activity addresses deficiencies in data quality and quantity on the levels of toxic chemical contaminants in marine mammals and their prey, refines methods and approaches for understanding linkages between exposure and specific biological effects and measures, and improves the dissemination of the information to constituents and resource managers. Furthermore, these data will provide a measure of the quality of marine mammal habitats. Various analytical methods developed at the NWFSC will be used for the following marine mammal projects: integrated assessment studies of contaminants and other chemical tracers to assess feeding ecology or population health; monitoring of contaminants from stranded animals in support of studies and from species for which few data exist; continued investigations of potential relationships between contaminant exposure and population effects; participation in Interlaboratory Comparison Exercises conducted by National Institute of Standards and Technology and other similar entities comparing analytical results for chemical tracers; and development of quality control materials and quality assurance criteria for new analytical methods as they are developed as part of our Quality Assurance Program. The results of the chemical tracer analyses will be summarized in a report that will be sent to the Office of Protected Resources by the 4th quarter of FY18. Concentrations of POPs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their metabolites, total lipid and lipid profiles, fatty acids, and stable isotopes in samples derived from marine mammal biopsies and necropsies.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys off the east coast of the United States to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. A pilot pelagic longline survey was conducted in 2004 off the east coast of the United States. The objective of the survey was to examine the feasibility of using pelagic longline gear to collect fisheries-independent data on stocks of offshore fishes and to establish protocols for future use. Additional objectives included examining the distribution and relative abundance of pelagic fishes in the region and collect biological and environmental data.

To study the effects of ocean acidification we conducted laboratory experiments with adult ovigerous females of the economically important southern Tanner crab, Chionoecetes bairdi. Ovigerous females were reared in one of 3 treatments: control (ambient pH ~8.1), pH 7.8, and pH 7.5 for 2 years. The adult female sizes used for the experiments ranged from 87 to 112 mm among the three treatments. Throughout the experiment , pH and temperature were measured daily in each of the 3 treatments. The mean daily temperature was 5.0 C, varied seasonally from a low of ~1 C in January 2012 to a high of ~ 9C in August 2011, and did not vary between treatments. pH remained significantly different among the treatments. Brooding duration for each female was defined as beginning the day of egg extrusion in 2012 and ended when larval hatching began in 2013. Mean brood duration ranged from 340 to 366 days. Magnesium and calcium content were determined at the end of the experiment from a portion of exoskeleton. Magnesium did not differ with pH treatment but the ratio of magnesium to calcium did differ among treatments.

Scientists and students will be exploring the deepwater coral reefs of the Oculina Banks, which stretch 30 miles offshore from Ft. Pierce to Cape Canaveral. This remote area includes the East Coast's first Marine Protected Area (MPA) which is a model for efforts underway to create new MPAs throughout southeast U.S. waters and the Gulf of Mexico. The team will use a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to study the current health of coral on the banks, which has been decimated in places by commercial trawling. They will also test an acoustic monitoring system that could one day be used to not only monitor fish behavior but also to detect illegal fishing activity on the reefsscientists and students will be exploring the deepwater coral reefs of the Oculina Banks, which stretch 30 miles offshore from Ft. Pierce to Cape Canaveral. This remote area includes the East Coast's first Marine Protected Area (MPA) which is a model for efforts underway to create new MPAs throughout southeast U.S. waters and the Gulf of Mexico. The team will use a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to study the current health of coral on the banks, which has been decimated in places by commercial trawling. They will also test an acoustic monitoring system that could one day be used to not only monitor fish behavior but also to detect illegal fishing activity on the reefs Scientists on the Oculina cruise will also be deploying a Passive Acoustic Monitoring System (PAMS) developed by NASA to monitor the impacts of rocket launches on wildlife refuge lagoons at the Kennedy Space Center. Led by Dr. Grant Gilmore, Dynamac Corporation, they will test the system's suitability for detecting offshore fish populations and vessel traffic. PAMS uses technology similar to that which allows the Navy to detect ships and submarines. Scientists from NASA Kennedy Space Center and NOAA Fisheries will join Dr. Gilmore specifically to see if the unit can be used to detect the presence of specific fish species and behaviors such as courtship and spawning aggregation. If so, the system could dramatically increase monitoring capabilities at the remote reefs.

This dataset is from a laboratory study that investigated the effect of temperature and tissue type on fatty acid signatures of Pacific cod and walleye pollock.

This expedition is the first of three cruises for the Deep SEARCH project focused on exploring and characterizing seeps, corals, and canyon environments along the Atlantic margin.

Data provide presence/absence of gross abnormalities on individual fish, identified to species, to allow calculation of the proportion of fish caught that had externally visible abnormalities. Accounting kept track of type of abnormality. Sampling was conducted weekly in the middle estuary and the outer estuary (inlet) and data were summarized by month.

This data set contains tuna morphometric measurements collected by Pacific Oceanic Fishery Investigations from 1949 through 1957 on research vessels. Date, position, gear, sex and maturity, weight and length measurements were collected on the following species: skipjack tuna, little tunny (kawakawa), bigeye tuna, yellowfin tuna, and albacore.

This dataset contains information angler experiences and preferences for recreational fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Towed-diver surveys (aka. Towboard surveys) are conducted by the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) of the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) as part of biennial Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) Cruises. These cruises support NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) long-term goals for sustainable management and conservation of coral reef ecosystems. 18 towboard surveys (38.952 km in length), were conducted at Ofu And Olosega Islands in the American Samoa from 3 - 26 February 2004 as part of RAMP Cruise OES0402. Towboard surveys are a good method for obtaining a general description of large reef areas, assessing the status of low-density populations of large-bodied reef fish, large-scale disturbances (e.g., bleaching), general distribution and abundance patterns of macro-invertebrates (e.g., COT, giant clams), and for assessing trends in these populations and metrics. A pair of scuba divers (1 fish and 1 benthic diver) are towed 60 m behind a small survey launch at a speed of 1-2 knots and a depth of approximately 15m. Each survey is 50 min long, covers about 2 km of habitat, and is divided into ten 5-minute survey segments. The fish diver records, to the lowest possible taxon, all large-bodied reef fishes (>50cmTL) seen within 5m either side and 10m in front of the towboard. Length of each individual is estimated to the nearest cm. The fish towboard is also outfitted with a forward-facing digital video camera to record the survey swath. The benthic diver records percent cover of coral and macroalgae, estimates benthic habitat type and complexity, and censuses a suite of benthic macroinvertebrates including Crown of Thorns sea stars and sea urchins. The benthic towboard is equipped with a downward-facing digital still camera which images the benthos at 15 second intervals. These images are analyzed for percent cover of coral, algae, and other benthic components. Both towboards are equipped with SEABIRD SBE-39 temperature/depth sensors set to record at 5 second intervals. Latitude and longitude of each survey track is recorded at 15 second intervals using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver onboard the tow boat. A layback algorithm is applied to more accurately map the position of the divers with respect to the reef environment. This algorithm calculates the position of the divers based on the position of the tow boat taking into account the length of the tow rope, the depth of the divers, and the curvature of the survey track. This metadata applies to the fish biomass observations.