Abstract
The Pacific Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (PacMAPPS) is 5-year multi-agency partnership to collect data and carry out density analyses necessary to support the regulatory and management missions of BOEM, NOAA, and the U.S. Navy. This project specifically supported the Hawaii portion of the PacMAPPS initiative, including summer-fall cetacean and seabird surveys in 2017, analyses of those data to derive spatially explicit (when possible) and uniform cetacean density estimates, and to carry out a cetacean and seabird survey in during the winter. The winter survey was originally scheduled for 2019, but was postponed to 2020 due to the U.S. Federal Government shutdown and subsequent delays in completing ship repairs. Both of the HICEAS efforts were line-transect surveys using a team of visual observers, a towed hydrophone array acoustically monitoring for vocal cetaceans, and a fleet of drifting recorders that monitored for vocalization of deep-diving cetaceans throughout the study area. The HICEAS 2017 survey was a full EEZ-wide survey. The winter HICEAS 2020 survey was carried out around the main Hawaiian Islands. This report describes the collection, summarization, and analysis of cetacean data form HICEAS 2017, and the collection and summarization of cetacean data from the winter HICESA 2020.
This final report is a compendium of four NOAA Technical Memoranda and one NOAA Administrative Report, each provided as a separate Appendix. Appendix A (Yano et al. 2018) is the HICEAS 2017 cruise report, describing the methods for cetacean and seabird data collection and providing basic data summaries (e.g., maps and quantification of survey effort, numbers and maps of visual sightings for cetaceans and seabirds, number of photographs and biopsy samples). Appendix B (Bradford et al. 2021) provides the visual line-transect design-based density and abundance estimates for all cetacean species encountered during HICEAS 2017, as well as updated density and abundance estimates for previous HICEAS surveys in 2002 and 2010, using the most up-to-date data and approaches for estimating the requisite density parameters. Appendix C (Becker et al. 2021) presents the spatial density modeling (SDM) analysis based on visual line transect data collected from each HICEAS effort (2002, 2010, and 2017). Outputs include density surface maps for all modeled cetacean species and population size estimates for the survey area. Appendix D (McCullough et al. 2021) describes the data collected by Drifting Acoustic Spar Buoy Recorders (DASBRs) during HICEAS 2017, including summary and maps of beaked whale, sperm whale, Kogia, and other odontocetes that were detected. Finally, Appendix E (Yano et al. 2020) is the winter HICEAS 2020 cruise report, describing the methods for cetacean and seabird data collection and providing basic data summaries (e.g., maps and quantification of survey effort, numbers and maps of visual sightings for cetaceans and seabirds, number of photographs and biopsy samples). Visual line-transect data (cetacean sightings and effort) for the HICEAS 2017 and 2020 are in the process of being uploaded to OBIS-SEAMAP (Halpin et al. 2009; http://seamap.env.duke.edu/), from where they can be viewed and downloaded by the public. Acoustic data will be archived at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information