2025 Annual Meeting

Emerging Technologies to Improve Efficiency and Support Innovation for Marine Mammal Stock Assessments

The Commission held its 2025 Annual Meeting on September 9-11 in La Jolla, California, focusing on emerging technologies to improve efficiency and support innovation for marine mammal stock assessments. Assessing marine mammal stocks gives us valuable information on population trends, productivity rates, estimates of human-caused mortality and other sources of serious injury, and more. These assessments allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation and recovery measures, and to adjust management approaches as needed. The meeting was public and open to all.

Meeting Materials

Click here for a PDF copy of the draft agenda. The meeting schedule, presentations, recordings, and session summaries are below.

Meeting Recordings

Visit the Commission’s Youtube Channel to watch every session of the meeting.

Day 1: Tuesday September 9

Meeting Opening

• Welcome and Introduction to the Meeting
  Peter Thomas, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission (MMC)

Session 1 – Eyes in the Sky: Emerging technologies for remote detection and assessment

Moderator: Jason Baker, MMC

• Introduction to session (see video recording)
  Jason Baker, MMC
• Geospatial Artificial Intelligence for Animals (GAIA)
  • Introduction to GAIA
    Christin Khan, NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center
  • Open-Source Preprocessing Workflow for Maxar’s Level 1B Satellite-Imagery to Enhance Detection & Identification of Marine Mammals
    Kim Goetz, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
• Estimating Minimum Population Size from Satellite Monitoring (see video recording)
  Tony Fischbach, USGS Alaska Science Center
• Satellite Detection of Whales
  Darcy Bradley, The Nature Conservancy
• Satellites to study live and stranded whales: How satellite imagery is giving insights for whale conservation (see video recording)
  Penny Clark, British Antarctic Survey
• Afternoon Break
• Eyes in the Sky Panel Discussion
  Panelists in Additions to Presenters:

1. David Johnston, Duke University

View Session Summary

Day 2: Wednesday September 10

Session 2 – Reducing Impact through Innovation: Innovative and less-invasive sampling methods for health and population assessment

Moderator: Randall Wells, Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program and MMC

• Session introduction and latest on remote tag deployment with the TADpole
  Randall Wells, Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s Sarasota Dolphin Research Program and MMC
• UAS-based deployments of suction cup attached biologging tags
  Chris Zadra, Ocean Alliance
• Development of a minimally-invasive blood collection device for cetaceans
  Cynthia Smith, National Marine Mammal Foundation
• Harnessing emerging technologies for a non-invasive approach to marine mammal energetics
  Michelle Shero, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• Advances in eDNA monitoring of marine mammals: Current capabilities and future directions
  Ryan Kelly, University of Washington
• What can epigenetics tell us about aging and health of marine mammals?
  Ashley Barratclough, National Marine Mammal Foundation
• Morning Break
• Reducing Impact through Innovation Panel Discussion

View Session Summary 

Session 3 – Connecting the Dots: Innovative and integrated quantitative methods for assessing populations

Moderator: Aaron Thode, UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography and MMC

• Introduction (see video recording)a
  Aaron Thode, UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography and MMC
• Understanding North Atlantic right whale abundance and distribution through data fusion
  Rob Schick, Southall Environmental Associates Inc. and Duke University
• Advancing acoustics for integrated population assessment
  Kait Frasier, UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Integrating multiple information types to improve estimates of large whale entanglement mortality and serious injury
  Jeff Moore, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
• Modelling population consequences of multiple stressors: from individual response to population dynamics
  Leslie New, Ursinus College
• Afternoon Break
• Connecting the Dots Panel Discussion

View Session Summary

Day 3: Thursday September 11

Session 4 – Regional Updates: Hot Topics in the California Current Ecosystem

Moderator: Karin Forney, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and MMC

• Wrap up of previous sessions: challenges to transitioning to emerging technologies and why there is an ongoing need for established approaches; followed by an introduction of regional updates (see video recording)
  Karin Forney, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and MMC
• Using climate-ready information in decision making for multiple stakeholders
  Elliot Hazen, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
• Collaborative approaches to addressing whale entanglement
  Ryan Bartling, California Department of Fish and Wildlife
• Monitoring the status of eastern North Pacific gray whales
  Aimée Lang, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
• Morning Break
• Are we in a new era of marine mammal mortality events associated with harmful algal blooms in California?
  Clarissa Anderson, Southern California Current Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS) and UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography

View Session Summary

Public Comment and Meeting Adjournment

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or feedback.