Marine mammal bycatch

Background

This project is supported by the Ocean Modeling Forum and the Lenfest Ocean Program. The goal of the project was to provide a toolbox of tools helpful for stakeholders with data-poor marine mammal stocks.

The Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group is a collaboration between academics and scientists from inside and outside NOAA. My primary contribution to this project was the {mmrefpoints} R package and Shiny app. I contributed to this work as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington.

Below you will find links to code, tutorials, and talks about the R package and Shiny app. We hope that the products from the working group, including {mmrefpoints}, can be part of a curriculum for training stakeholders about survey design, observer programs, and risk analysis.

R package

The {mmrefpoints} R package provides tools for projecting marine mammal abundance under different bycatch scenarios. It can also be used as a way to access the Shiny app offline.

The code for {mmrefpoints} is open source and published in the Journal of Open Source Software.

Shiny app

The MMBIET Shiny app, included in {mmrefpoints} is available here. If you have any trouble with the app or want to request a new feature, visit the Issues page for the package.

Talks

Material from this project has been presented at workshops and in lectures.

  • Webinar: Best practices to assess and manage marine mammal bycatch. Lenfest Ocean Program, March 14, 2022. (link - app introduction starts at 34:15)

  • A tool for projecting marine mammal abundance under different bycatch scenarios. January 7, 2022. University of Washington Quantitative Seminar. (link)

Papers

Siple et al. 2022. mmrefpoints: Projecting long-term marine mammal abundance with bycatch. Open access.

See the Ocean Modeling Forum website for a full list of paper from the Marine Mammal Bycatch Working Group.

Other materials

  • Best Practices for Assessing and Managing Marine Mammal Bycatch - fact sheet. April 2022. (link)

See the Ocean Modeling Forum’s product page for more working group products including papers and a link to a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science.