CEFAS23-41 Contract for WAMMS Support

The Welsh Acoustic Marine Mammal Survey (WAMMS) project has been commissioned to build an understanding of acoustic measurements within a newly appoint protected area in order to understand the current impacts to marine life. Sites chosen for the deployment of equipment are in areas that currently do not have a significant amount of acoustic data tied to them. The study aims to develop a robust and effective method to measure underwater noise and cetacean acoustic activity in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Wales. Cefas require the Supplier to deploy acoustic equipment at designated monitoring locations within a newly appointed protected area, the Supplier will deploy, service/maintain, and recover the equipment as well as collate raw data from the sites. This pilot study will focus on the North Anglesey Marine Special Area of Conservation (SAC), designed for harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena). Workstream 1 will define a method for measuring underwater noise and cetacean distribution using Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) and test data collection over an 18-month period. Lessons learnt from this pilot will feed into workstream 2 which will develop an approach for the long-term monitoring of underwater noise and cetaceans across all relevant MPAs in Wales. The Supplier will be expected to bring existing experience of collecting PAM data in this region, by 1) deployment and maintenance of instrumentation in the field and 2) data processing and analysis of cetacean vocalisations. This will include data downloads, storage, processing, species classification and descriptive statistics of findings that will be presented in a technical report.