Azura recently assisted the HDR Environmental, Operations, and Constructions Inc. team in preparing annual reports for the U.S. Navy’s Marine Species Monitoring (MSM) Program.

To comply with U.S. laws and regulations for protecting marine mammals and other marine protected species, the Navy is responsible for meeting specific requirements for monitoring and reporting on military readiness activities involving active sonar and underwater detonations from explosives and explosive munitions. The MSM Program allows the Navy to comply with the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other related regulations.

The Hawaii-Southern California Training and Testing (HSTT) Annual Monitoring Report and the Atlantic Fleet Training and Testing (AFFT) Annual Monitoring Report summarize the Navy’s 2015 monitoring efforts in the Pacific and Atlantic. These monitoring efforts included a variety of research studies, such as vessel and aerial surveys for humpback whales in the Mid-Atlantic and passive acoustic monitoring for beaked whales and baleen whales in the Pacific Missile Range Facility off Hawaii. Once finalized, the reports will be available to the public via the Navy’s MSM website.