NOPP Funded Marine Mammal Tagging Projects

Four FY 2010 projects on cetacean tagging will be funded through NOPP.

Attaching instruments to marine mammals in the primary method used to collect quantitative data about animal physiology and behavior and how human activities affect these processes. The issue of the potential effects of anthropogenic sound on the behavior and physiology of marine mammals has been the stimulus for the development of a number of small, sensor equipped and microcomputer-driven electronic tags. However, keeping these tags consistently and and safely attached to animals for target time grames lags behind improvements and is the main technological constraint limiting further advances in this field.

The National Oceanographic Partnership Program released a Broad Agency Announcement in August 2009 calling for proposals on two topics. Topic 1, Improving Attachments of Electronic Data Loggers to Cetaceans, included two subtopics. Sub-topic 1A covered causes of tag attachment success and/or failure and sub-topic 1B covered case studies to determine the short and long term physical, physiological, and behavior effects of tags on animals. The projects will be funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Minerals Management Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Ten projects were submitted to the BAA and four will be funded. For more information on the funded projects, visit https://nopp.org/funded-projects/fy2010-projects/.