Passive acoustic analysis of vessel presence in Australian Marine Parks

Monitoring compliance and enforcing laws are integral to ensuring the success of marine protected areas (MPAs), but traditional monitoring techniques are costly and resource demanding.

With the addition of many new marine parks to the Australian Marine Parks (AMPs) estate, there is a gap in the Director of National Parks’ understanding of use of AMPs by small vessels. This lack of ‘domain awareness’ creates a potentially high risk for marine park managers.

The objective of this project is to improve our understanding of use of AMPs by small vessels and to inform compliance risk planning and management. To do this, archival acoustic recorders have been deployed in high risk parks. The data is analysed to gain an understanding of the level of small vessel activity in the AMPs.

Further deployments will be detailed within this metadata record as they occur.

Cod Grounds and Solitary Islands Marine Parks - Deployment 1

Three SoundTrap 300 recorders were deployed for one month between 1 July and 12 September 2018 to collect acoustic data in two marine parks off south-eastern Australia: one recorder in Cod Grounds Marine Park (CGMP) and two in the Solitary Islands Marine Park National Park Zone (SIMP NPZ). Approximately 12.7 hr of vessel sounds were recorded within CGMP; approximately 3.8 hr of vessel noise were recorded within the SIMP NPZ.