Marine mammal advice documents

Offshore Oil & Gas (O&G) exploration is essential if the world’s demands are to be catered for. Despite strong public opinion, the majority of offshore industries recognise the importance of managing marine activities in an environmentally responsible manner. Getting the right, independent advice, at the right time is an effective way to achieve this.

We won’t tell you what you want to hear to tick a box, we’ll tell you what you need to know to get the job done properly™

OSC/OSC-NZ is comprised of a multi-disciplinary, international team of highly qualified and industry-experienced marine scientists that offer advice and guidance on a range of topics associated with marine mammal mitigation, decommissioning and underwater noise. This can be achieved at high speed – by phone or email, or through pre-arranged, pre-project planning, and production of desktop studies, literature reviews, reports and advice documents.

What advice do I need?

If new to the ‘marine mammals and noise mitigation arena’, and unsure as to what your project requires, contact us here. We are quick to respond and are always happy to advise all stakeholders, client or non-client of the most likely suitable requirements.

What can OSC advise me on?

Any topic regarding marine mammals, decommissioning and underwater noise.

OSC/OSC-NZ provides advice on project planning including, but not limited to:

The latest research

OSC has had experience regarding existing legislation, regulations, and guidelines since 2004, and is up to date with all the latest research. OSC has access to a wealth of scientific information, and regularly conducts literature searches for all relevant published and unpublished sources of information. OSC also draws upon additional expertise from a pool of rigorously tested associate and independent professionals, as and when required. Mostly, we have expertise in-house, but joint-bid with other organisations/companies on a regular basis.

If you want to do it by the book, use the people who wrote the Book

Advice documents collate information into concise, well presented and easy to understand documents that are tailored to the needs of the client and the purpose of the project.

Independent

OSC is a completely independent and privately-owned R&D company, so our reports and literature reviews are unbiased and balanced. All information and advice is based on scientific research, not emotion or public perception. Furthermore, our industry expertise means we understand what is practical and workable within industry, and apply this to all our activities to ensure advice is realistic, implementable and effective at reducing operational downtime without breaching guidelines.

Published advice documents

OSC has produced a peer-reviewed paper, published in ICES Journal of Marine Science, on the known and predicted impacts of dredging on marine mammals. A comprehensive reference table detailing hearing ranges, habitat, regional distribution, and diet preferences of all marine mammals is provided as supplementary material, and can be used during planning stages and production of impact assessments.

More recently, OSC collaborated with JASCO and Cawthron Institute to provide a detailed advice document for the New Zealand Department of Conservation about the biology and ecology of Hector’s dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori) and Māui dolphins (Cephalorhynchus hectori maui) and potential impacts from offshore O&G and mining in New Zealand (Lucke et al., 2019). Little information is available for these species; therefore, OSC’s specific sections focussed on detailing responses of a similar proxy species, harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), to various industrial sources of disturbance, mitigation options to reduce disturbance, and survey methodology. The full report is available here.

The Marine Mammal Observer and Passive Acoustic Monitoring Handbook is an all-encompassing guide to marine mammal mitigation measures utilised during industrial activities (in particular, seismic exploration). The Handbook addresses a wide variety of topics and is a useful reference guide for all industry stakeholders. The Handbook is available to purchase from Amazon.

Examples of non-published advice document topics

The following comprise a few examples, of the hundreds of industrial marine mammal and noise mitigation advice documents regarding seismic exploration, mining, bridge construction, wind farm, defence etc. (see sectors for full list) prepared on behalf of our :

  • Advice on the guidelines for Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) of marine mammals to the Department Of Conservation (DOC) for their seismic survey Code of Conduct;
  • Advice on mining and potential effects of marine mammals in New Zealand;
  • Advice on the potential effects of drilling mud plumes on marine mammals in the Dogger Bank (North Sea);
  • Advice on potential effects of cumulative wind farm noise on marine mammals in Dogger Bank and Borkum Riffgrund SACs in the North Sea;
  • Advice on platform production underwater noise and operational activities on marine mammals in the Dogger Bank SAC (Danish, Dutch, German, and UK sectors);
  • Advice on the use of pingers (and other techniques) as marine mammal mitigation tools during offshore conductor-hammering procedures in the North Sea (German and Dutch Sectors);
  • Advice and regulator permit liaison on seismic exploration in German waters;
  • Advice on mooring techniques and marine mammal acoustic monitoring in Scandinavia (defence);
  • Advice on marine mammal mitigation during sonar trials (defence);
  • Advice on marine mammal mitigation during unexploded ordnance (UK);
  • Advice on seal mitigation during harbour construction;

Contact us to discuss your individual requirements.

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