November 3, 2021 — Federal agencies that regulate offshore wind energy development issued a framework for designing and conducting acoustic monitoring of endangered whales and other sea life affected by building and operating wind turbine arrays.

“With a diverse suite of endangered large whale species and a multitude of other protected marine species frequenting these same waters, understanding the potential consequences of construction and operation activities is essential to advancing responsible offshore wind development,” states the paper published Oct. 27 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, by a team led by experts with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and National Marine Fisheries Service.

Underwater microphones can now operate remotely, over long times and at distance, running non-stop to record and archive sounds of the ocean environment.

Advances in using autonomous unmanned vessels, such as submersible electric gliders and saildrones, mean researchers can set microphones on voyages across study areas, along with acoustic receivers deployed on buoys or anchored to the sea floor.

“Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) represents a newer technology that has become one of several methods of choice for monitoring trends in the presence of species, the soundscape, mitigating risk, and evaluating potential behavioral and distributional changes resulting from offshore wind activities,” the authors wrote.

Read the full story at National Fisherman