Report of the Joint US Office of Naval Research, International Whaling Commission and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Workshop on Cetacean Tag Development, Tag Follow-up and Tagging Best Practices.

Abstract

The Workshop was held at the National Marine Fisheries Service office in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA from 6 to 8 September 2017. During this Workshop, limited time was devoted to the topic of understanding the impacts of invasive tagging and improving invasive tagging techniques. Therefore, a subgroup of the Silver Spring Workshop participants met at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, WA, USA on 19 and 20 June 2018 to develop more detailed recommendations for future directions in the development of invasive tag attachments. This report integrates discussions held during the two meetings. The agendas of the meetings in Silver Spring and Seattle are provided in Annexes A and B, respectively. Funding for the Workshop was provided by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’ National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA/NMFS) and the United States Office of Naval Research (ONR). A total of 42 participants from 9 different countries attended the Silver Spring meeting, and 19 from 6 countries participated in the Seattle meeting. Participants included tag developers, tag users, veterinarians, engineers, representatives of governmental and intergovernmental agencies, and tag manufacturers. The list of participants is provided in Annex C. 1.1 Introduction of Chair and Rapporteurs Donovan was appointed Chair and Simeone, Double and Rowles acted as rapporteurs for the Workshop in Silver Spring. Weise and Schorr were nominated, respectively, Chair and rapporteur for the meeting in Seattle