Hello MARMAM people, My co-authors and I would like to share with you our recent publication about a software tool we developed to aid in processing survey data, as well as analyze North Atlantic right whale detections (both visual and acoustic) for dynamic management:
Crowe LM, Cole TVN, Foley HJ, Cholewiak DM (2023). Shiny tools for management rules: interactive applications that aid in conservation strategies for North Atlantic right whales. Journal of Open Source Software, 8(88), 5436, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.05436 Summary: Conservation strategies aimed at protecting the Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale in the United States currently include static and dynamic management measures to mitigate vessel strikes. The vessel speed restriction ruling was first put into place in late 2008, but beginning around 2010, a range-wide distribution shift occurred for the species, and right whales were increasingly sighted in regions without existing static protections. This change in habitat use put pressure on dynamic measures to provide some level of protection in these areas outside of Seasonal Management Areas (SMAs). The shift in right whale habitat use motivated the integration of additional ways to detect the presence of right whales, and in late 2020, a program was introduced that expanded dynamic management by triggering Slow Zones in response to acoustic detections of right whale vocalizations. The expansion of the dynamic management conservation strategy, as well as the increase in detection of right whales outside of SMAs, called for tools to: 1) streamline the process of handling multiple streams of right whale detection data, 2) refine and modernize the process of determining if the trigger criteria for dynamic measures were met, 3) quickly and accurately calculate the boundaries of a proposed Slow Zone, and 4) communicate this information to federal managers in near real-time. The tools described here were developed for scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in their role as data stewards to support federal managers at the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office; however, the data processing and reporting procedure will be of interest to wildlife survey and management teams with similar objectives. Additionally, these publicly available tools provide transparency and reproducibility of the process for declaring dynamic protection zones in the Northeast United States. These tools were written primarily using the R coding language and specifically leverage the ‘Shiny’ package. The paper is available at the link above through the Journal of Open Source Software, which provides a link to our GitHub repository. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions! Leah -- Leah M. Crowe (she/her) Protected Species Branch Northeast Fisheries Science Center 166 Water Street Woods Hole, MA 02543 www.nefsc.noaa.gov/psb/
_______________________________________________ MARMAM mailing list MARMAM@lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam
