Updates from the Subcommittees

The RWSC Subcommittees will be on vacation during the month of July! In the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of their progress implementing Science Plan recommendations. For a full update, attend the RWSC Symposium on Day 1 of NYSERDA’s State of the Science Workshop on Offshore Wind Energy, Wildlife, and Fisheries (July 16-19):

Across all Subcommittees:

• Advancing the development of the RWSC Research Planning Map, with public launch planned this summer.
• Reviewing, updating, and maintaining the Offshore Wind & Wildlife Research Database with the best available information on ongoing and pending research and data collection activities spanning U.S. Atlantic waters.

	Marine Mammal Subcommittee Continues to lead regional coordination around deployment of long-term/archival passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) for baleen whales, including through hosting a NY/NJ Bight-focused workshop on May 6 and sharing approaches and lessons learned with Pacific PAM practitioners on May 21.
	Bird & Bat Subcommittee Advancing a Framework for Bird and Bat Tracking Research led by USFWS (see State of the Science Symposium on this topic on Day 2), developing a draft list of priority/focal bird species for tagging/tracking by subregion, developing guidance for bat acoustics deployment offshore.
	Sea Turtle Subcommittee Identifying sea turtle baseline data needs for robust impact assessment and discussing the utility of acoustic telemetry for sea turtle studies. Contributing to the development of best practices for acoustic telemetry data with the Atlantic Cooperative Telemetry (ACT) Network and supporting a shared map of acoustic telemetry receiver deployments. Attending the ACT Annual meeting in New Haven, CT June 3-6.
	Habitat & Ecosystem Subcommittee Developed a dataset that depicts locations of relocated boulders from offshore wind construction and a shared map of planned seafloor mapping areas in the Gulf of Maine. Advancing a Seafloor Data Repository, methods to consistently map regional scale seafloor habitat, understanding regional plankton data collection, oceanography data collection, and potential data products to develop as inputs to species distribution models.
	Protected Fish Species Subcommittee Also contributing to the development of acoustic telemetry best practices, attending the ACT Annual Meeting in New Haven, CT June 3-6, and identifying oceanographic and seafloor variables and data products of interest as covariates for protected fish movement/presence analysis and modeling.
	Technology Subcommittee With MTS’s Offshore Renewable Energy Committee, jointly hosted the first session of the Collaborative Technology Workshop Series, which garnered nearly 400 registrants and over 200 participants. Planning Session 2, which will take place on June 26, 1-4pm ET (registration is required).
	Data Governance Subcommittee Developing resources, tools, and policies that relate to all Subcommittees, species groups, and datasets. Developing recommendations around data repositories, minimum metadata standards, and content of data management plans. Attend the next meeting on June 13 to learn more.