Dear colleagues,

We still have some spots available in our full-day workshop at the SMM 
Conference in Perth, Australia on Saturday, 09 November 2024 titled, 
“Navigating Safe Waters: Unveiling a Novel Risk Assessment Tool for Vessel 
Operations Impacting Marine Mammals”.

This workshop will focus on understanding vessel strike risk associated with 
offshore wind vessel operations in U.S. outer continental shelf waters and 
evaluating assessment of that risk in the form of a new risk assessment tool.

Please note that part of the workshop will be devoted to testing an early 
version of the new online vessel strike risk assessment tool. Therefore, 
participants should bring their own laptop or other wifi-enabled device.

Navigating Safe Waters: Unveiling a Novel Risk Assessment Tool for Vessel 
Operations Impacting Marine Mammals 
https://www.smmconference.org/workshops/#1718132289356-cbc79593-2e03
CSA Ocean Sciences (CSA) and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) 
developed a publicly available and easy to use risk assessment tool to model 
the potential strike risk associated with offshore wind vessel operations on 
large whale species in U.S. outer continental shelf waters. The latest 
generation of this model is in final development and is being presented 
publicly for the first time at this conference. The general purpose of this 
workshop will be to introduce the model to users who require assessment of 
vessel strike risk. Participants will have input on its usability and 
application related to vessel strike risk reduction methodologies and 
technologies for marine mammals. The targeted audience includes both biologists 
and regulators that need a practical and straight foreword approach to 
understanding and quantifying vessel strike risk. The following topics will be 
covered: 1) discuss data inputs and limitations; 2) discuss applicability 
outside the U.S. and alternative data set usage from managers and researchers; 
3) identify strike risk reduction or mitigation recommendations that could 
influence the model and transfer that information to end users (i.e. vessel 
operators); 4) brainstorm how model may be integrated into a broader suite of 
vessel strike avoidance technologies; and 5) obtain feedback on the user 
experience and utility of the model. These topics will be covered through a 
series of brief presentations, round-table discussions, and hands-on use of the 
model itself. The final activity will involve participants running the model 
based on a hypothetical scenario. The information generated through this 
workshop will be used to refine how the model is used and presented in the U.S. 
offshore wind industry while also providing the foundation for users who want 
to build similar models for other global regions or activities.

Please reach out with any questions and we hope to see you soon in Perth!

Thank you,
Tara

Tara S. Stevens
Senior Scientist
Protected Species Risk Assessment Lead
CSA Ocean Sciences Inc.
Northeast Regional Office
42 Ladd Street, Suite 316 | East Greenwich, Rhode Island 02818
tarastev...@conshelf.com<mailto:tarastev...@conshelf.com>
Mobile: +1 401-500-0182
[cidimage001.jpg@01D76826.14652D60]
www.csaocean.com<http://www.csaocean.com/>
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