HRC RIMPAC Small Vessel-Based Monitoring Surveys July 2010

Original provider: HDR Environmental, Operations and Construction, Inc. Dataset credits: The U.S. Navy Marine Species Monitoring Program Abstract: During 23 June through 1 August 2010, the 22nd Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC 2010) exercise was conducted in the Hawaii Range Complex (HRC). RIMPAC is a biennial, multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional partnerships and improve interoperability. It is an exercise designed to bring multinational military assets together to train towards bettering the Navy’s capabilities. Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) was the exercise's main feature. As part of compliance requirements with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, the Navy developed the HRC Monitoring Plan to provide marine mammal and sea turtle monitoring (DoN 2008). In order to effectively meet the goals outlined in this Plan, it was determined that one example of training events recommended for monitoring should contain one or more surface combatants conducting ASW during a regularly scheduled training event. Research elements of that Plan include visual surveys and passive acoustic monitoring.
The monitoring effort for RIMPAC 2010 consisted of the following:
- Vessel-based line transect surveys to assess the diversity, distribution, and behavior of target species (e.g., marine mammals and sea turtles)
- Installation of one shallow- and one deep-water passive acoustic monitors (PAMs) in waters off Ni'ihau. Purpose: not provided Supplemental information: [2017-10-12] Data fields are changed so that they follow the other Navy datasets. This dataset includes the data from the vessel-based line transect surveys. The sighting of short-finned pilot whales and spinner dolphins on 7/19/10 was an aggregation of the two species and recorded as a single record. This sighting was split into each species in this dataset.