FY 2023 Results Summary

Introduction

This web page summarizes the results of the Marine Mammal Commission’s (the Commission) Survey of Federally Funded Marine Mammal Research (the Survey) for fiscal year (FY) 2023.

Funding allocated to marine mammal research through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was not fully distributed to all federal agencies by the end of the Survey’s FY 2023 data call and is not represented in these summary results. IRA funding amounts will be included once those data are available. Additionally, data from the Army Corps of Engineer will not be available until July 2024. Please see the Data Notice below for details about what these results represent.

For more information about the Survey, click here.

The Survey focuses on research projects involving marine mammals. Research projects are defined as:

1. projects funded as part of a recognized research/grants program (including funding for workshops, meetings, and conferences);
2. projects supported in response to hypothesis driven scientific research and monitoring (excluding monitoring only for mitigation purposes); and
3. projects or activities conducted in whole or part to meet the requirements to prepare and update stock assessment reports under section 117 of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, including the collection and evaluation of abundance data, stock delineation and status information, and estimates of human-caused mortality and serious injury of marine mammals.

Projects reported to the Survey conform to at least one part of this definition.

Importantly, the Survey only contains information about federal funding sources, it does not include funding for marine mammal research from state agencies, non-governmental organizations, or private companies (e.g., settlement funds from private industry for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill).

Below, we provide a high-level summary of the reported FY 2023 funding by agency, project objective, and species. The total funding amount for each project was rounded to the nearest $10,000 when reported except for projects funded at or below $5,000, which were rounded to $5,000. Requests for additional information or details about federal marine mammal research and funding reported in FY 2023 Survey can be made by contacting the Commission at surveyffr@mmc.gov.

Results

Funding by Agency

For FY 2023, agencies within the Departments of Commerce, Interior, Defense, and Homeland Security, as well as three independent agencies reported funding 465 marine mammal projects for a combined total of $87.87 million (Figure 1). Funding provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and U.S. Navy accounted for 74% ($65.19M) of the total federal funding for marine mammal research. Projects sponsored by NOAA, an agency within the Department of Commerce, accounted for 52% ($43.43M) of the total federal funding. Within NOAA, projects sponsored by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the line office responsible for research and management of cetaceans and pinnipeds, accounted for approximately 98% of NOAA’s total contribution to federally funded marine mammal research. Responsibility for the research and management of manatees, polar bears, sea otters, and walruses falls to agencies within the Department of the Interior: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Projects sponsored by the FWS and USGS accounted for 5% and 6% of the federal funding of marine mammal research respectively. Together, NOAA, FWS, and USGS, which have lead regulatory, research, and management responsibility to ensure the conservation of all marine mammals within US jurisdiction, provided 60% ($52.44) of the total federal funding reported for FY 2023. The National Science Foundation (NSF) reported $2.59M (3% of total funding). Both the Navy (26% of total funding) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM, 7% of total funding) are responsible for research on, and mitigation of, the impact of their activities and policies affecting marine mammals. The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of State, and the Smithsonian Institution reported no funding allocated to marine mammal research projects in FY 2023.

Funding by Research Objective

For each project reported to the Survey, respondents identified the specific research objectives from 12 high-level categories that each contained various sub-categories. Table 1 shows the total funding for each of the 12 high-level research objectives. To see the list of sub-category project objectives and the funding amounts reported under each, click here. In FY 2023, over $29M in funding was reported for Stock Assessment and Population Dynamics, over $13M was reported for Technology Development, and almost $12M was reported for Ecology.

Funding by Species

For each project reported to the Survey, the total funding amount of the project was allocated across individual focal species by the reporting agency. Of the 134 living and recently extinct marine mammal species, 71 were named as focal species in FY 2023 projects. Figure 2 shows the species for which total funding was reported at $1M or greater. If a project did not have focal species or surveyed more than 10 species, it was reported as a multi-species project and funds were not allocated across individual species. Multi-species projects totaled $25.54M, or about 29% of the total funding amount. Species with the greatest amount of total funding reported were North Atlantic right whale ($10.04M), goose-beaked whale ($4.02M), Hawaiian monk seal ($3.47M), and polar bear ($3.22M).

Acknowledgements

The Marine Mammal Commission would like to thank the federal agencies who participated in the Survey for their efforts to provide accurate information on their marine mammal research activities and funding, and gratefully acknowledges the time and effort contributed to the Survey by the coordinators and respondents from those agencies. In addition, the Commission greatly appreciates the engagement and agency feedback provided throughout the process of revising the online data collection system; these comments improved the Survey and its usefulness substantially. Finally, the Commission acknowledges the exemplary work of Eastern Research Group, Inc. in helping the Commission revise and launch the survey system used for the FY 2019 data call and continued assistance with system maintenance. Comments on this summary report or the Survey are welcome and can be submitted to the Commission at surveyffr@mmc.gov.

Data Notice

The data displayed on this web page were downloaded from the survey system on 05 May 2024, by which time the Commission had completed a quality assurance/quality control inspection of the data that were submitted. FY 2023 data from the Army Corps of Engineers will not be available for entry until July 2024 and are not included in the summary results. Funding allocated to marine mammal research through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was not fully distributed to all federal agencies by the end of the Survey’s FY 2023 data call, and therefore is also not represented in these summary results. IRA funding amounts will be included once those data are available.

Suggested Citation: U.S. Marine Mammal Commission. (2024). “Survey of Federally Funded Marine Mammal Research: FY 2023 Results Summary.” Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from https://www.mmc.gov/grants-and-research-survey/survey-of-federally-funded-research/fy-2023-results-summary/.