Beluga whale acoustic monitoring during pile driving at the Port of Alaska, 2021

Castellote, M.; Knoth, J.

doi:10.25923/82ty-nj16

i

Beluga whale acoustic monitoring during pile driving at the Port of Alaska, 2021

2026
By Castellote, M. ; Knoth, J.
Series: AFSC processed report 2026-04

Details

Personal Author:

Castellote, M. ; Knoth, J.
Corporate Authors:

Alaska Fisheries Science Center (U.S.) ; Marine Mammal Laboratory (U.S.) ; Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies.
NOAA Program & Office:

NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; AFSC (Alaska Fisheries Science Center) ; CICOES (Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies)
Description:

Pile driving activities associated with the construction of the petroleum and cement terminal at the Port of Alaska (POA) in Anchorage, Alaska, occurred between April and November during the ice-free season of 2020 and 2021. The POA implemented a comprehensive marine mammal monitoring and mitigation program to reduce potential impacts of pile driving on marine mammals in Cook Inlet, as required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. During the 2021 open water season, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) funded a marine mammal passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) project concurrently with the POA monitoring and mitigation program; four moorings were deployed at two stations north and south of the port docks. The aim of the PAM project was to 1) determine if pile driving activities would deter belugas from crossing the port area, and 2) compare visual sightings and acoustic detections to determine the level of missed beluga presence by both monitoring methodologies.
Keywords:

Acoustic Beluga Cook Inlet Marine Mammal Mooring Pile
Series:

AFSC processed report 2026-04
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25923/82ty-nj16
Format:

pdf
Document Type:

Processed Report
License:

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Rights Information:

CC0 Public Domain
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:90e434d978f5e0d2b3aeb01661511b567932ca49e72bb21e19b83227f4546013047c989f0eaa09915fac2bacc2275dc0a3f06520f21152ff84daeb81a2dbc1be
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/72462/noaa_72462_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 1.03 MB ]

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