The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today highlighted efforts to protect the North Atlantic right whale (NARW) by studying impacts of offshore wind development, including through partnerships with other federal and state agencies.
BOEM cited its engagement with NOAA to develop a science and management strategy to promote NARW protection and recovery that will include identification of existing and needed collaborative research, mitigation requirements, and regional-scale monitoring (draft strategy for public review expected later this year).
Among other things, BOEM also noted BOEM/NOAA work with partners to develop a regional passive acoustic monitoring network to identify marine mammal movements and distributions (including NARW) and deployment of real-time passive acoustic monitoring systems, BOEM work with NOAA on a Federal Survey Mitigation Implementation Strategy, and continued work with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center on NARW aerial sur
