2012 Annual Meeting
The Marine Mammal Commission is planning its annual meeting, to be held the week of 23 January 2012 in Anchorage, Alaska. To view the draft agenda, click here.
Drakes Estero
The Marine Mammal Commission's report on "Mariculture and Harbor Seals in Drakes Estero, California" is now available by clicking here.
PCAD Symposium
On 21 October 2011 the Marine Mammal Program of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Marine Mammal Commission co-sponsored a symposium in Washington, D.C. on the population-level consequences of acoustic disturbance. The symposium reflected an interactive, synthetic process over the past three years that has engaged 30 experts from 20 institutions worldwide. Participants discussed translation of the National Research Council’s 2005 conceptual model on population-level consequences of sound into formal, species-specific, and ultimately transferable mathematical structures. They presented case studies of northern and southern elephant seals, coastal bottlenose dolphins, northern right whales, and beaked whales. The work was supported in part by grant N00014-09-1-0896 from ONR to the University of California, Santa Barbara. For a copy of the agenda and presentations, click here.
For more information on ONR’s Marine Mammals and Biology program click here
Long-term effects of the Gulf oil spill
The April 2010 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in an oil spill with significant ecological, social, and economic consequences. The Marine Mammal Commission, in consultation with its Committee of Scientific Advisors on Marine Mammals, has prepared a report "Assessing the Long-term Effects of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Marine Mammals in the Gulf of Mexico: A Statement of Research Needs" to (1) guide assessment of the long-term effects of the Gulf spill and associated risk factors on marine mammals, (2) guide mitigation and restoration efforts for Gulf marine mammal populations, (3) help track the changes in the Gulf ecosystem, including recovery and restoration, and (4) help guide assessment of future spills in the Gulf and elsewhere.
The Commission's scientific integrity policy
The Marine Mammal Commission is committed to maintaining the integrity of, and promoting public trust in, the science used to inform policy decisions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and related statutes. The Act requires the gathering, compiling, evaluating, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting of scientific information. The Commission uses such scientific information to conduct specific reviews and studies, and to formulate recommendations to other agencies, the Administration, and Congress. To read about the Marine Mammal Commission’s Scientific Integrity Policy, click here.
Ensuring Data Quality
The Marine Mammal Commission has adopted guidelines to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information disseminated by the agency in accordance with the directive issued by the Office of Management and Budget (67 Fed. Reg. 8452B8460), pursuant to section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001.
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