Protected Species Assessment Workshop (PSAW) IV

The Office of Science and Technology (OST) is sponsoring the Fourth National Protected Species Assessment Workshop (PSAW IV). Due to travel restrictions, the PSAW IV steering committee has decided to move forward with the first ever fully virtual PSAW.

The goal of PSAW is to help share the latest advances, challenges, and solutions in protected species science and foster collaboration among scientists from different offices and programs within NOAA Fisheries and collaborators. PSAW supports a culture of open science that increases innovative processes that deliver critical science to managers so they can implement adaptive management strategies. Assessments of all protected species are relevant to PSAW.

When: The virtual workshop will take place most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, August 14, 2025 to September 16, 2025. All sessions will be available via Google Meet.

Agenda: Please see the PSAW IV Program for more information. The workshop includes oral and speed presentations with interactive discussions as well as training sessions.

Registration: PSAW registration is open to NOAA Fisheries personnel, affiliates, scholars, collaborators, and other NOAA Line Offices. Participants must register for each session they want to attend in order to receive the virtual login information. Registration for each session closes 48 hours prior to the session. If you have any issues with registration, please email erin.mcmichael@noaa.gov.

Abstract Submission: Abstract submission is now closed. Authors received abstract acceptance emails, presentation guidelines, and presentation times by August 1, 2025.

Main Sessions

August 14, 2025

2 - 4:30pm EST

Welcome to PSAW and Special Session on the National Protected Species Toolbox Initiative and Fisheries Integrated Toolbox

Co-Chairs: Erin McMichael (OST), Kathryn Doering (OST)

Patrick Lynch (Director of OST’s Assessment and Monitoring Branch) will give opening remarks for PSAW IV and also highlight the role of OST in protected species science at NMFS. We will then focus on The National Protected Species Toolbox initiative (NPST). NPST supports NOAA Fisheries efforts to create, evaluate, and disseminate novel analytical products and applications to improve protected species assessments in support of species conservation and recovery. The initiative has enhanced partnerships and coordination among science and management officials by jointly identifying regional and national research priorities; fostered scientific innovation and excellence through supporting collaborative and interdisciplinary projects; and developed novel techniques to assess impacts on protected species populations from ecosystem change, human activities, as well as cumulative and aggregated stressors. To date, NPST has supported 39 projects and led to 52 scientific publications (to date), countless presentations at scientific meetings, numerous reports and tech memos, theses, dissertations, R packages, GitHub repositories, GUI interfaces, interactive maps and other websites. Many of these tools are openly accessible through the NOAA Fisheries Integrated Toolbox (FIT). This session focuses on tools and applications developed through this initiative, especially those that are applicable across regions, taxa, and/or species.  

August 21, 2025

2 - 4pm EST

Advanced Technology/Platforms in Protected Species Assessments, Conservation, and Management, Session 1 

Co-Chairs: Héloïse Frouin-Mouy (NEFSC), Tara Trinko Lake (NEFSC)

Conservation scientists and managers are often successful in creating innovative solutions to protected species conservation problems by inventing, building or repurposing technology and analytical tools. This session will highlight emerging and advanced technologies or platforms that support research, assessment, and management of protected species. Managers rely on the most up-to-date data on protected species (e.g., presence/absence, abundance, distribution, behavior, etc.) to make informed decisions. As a result, to meet these adaptive management needs, research efforts at NOAA Fisheries and across NOAA are increasingly  leveraging innovative technologies and platforms that enhance the speed and efficiency of data collection and analysis. Examples include camera systems, uncrewed aircraft (UxS, drones), remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles (ROVs,AUVs), passive and active acoustic technologies, machine learning, thermal imaging, remote sensing, instrument/tagging platforms, and decision support tools, among others. This session underscores the critical role of technological innovation for protected species research and conservation. (Due to the number of abstract submissions for this topic, we have added a second session, see below (September 11, 2025).

August 26, 2025

2 - 4:30pm EST

Protected Species Bycatch 

Co-Chairs: Melissa Snover (PIRO), Diana Dishman (WCRO) 

There are shared challenges in measuring and predicting the impacts of bycatch, including estimating levels of unobserved (cryptic) bycatch and post-interaction mortality rates for a range of protected species. This information is critical for tracking incidental take associated with specific fisheries, as well as updating marine mammal Stock Assessment Reports and other inputs needed to predict, monitor, and manage fisheries bycatch risk. Presentations across a range of topics related to incidental impacts to protected species from fisheries activities are welcome, including:

1. How bycatch is incorporated into protected species assessments;
2. Tools the Fisheries regions and Centers use to help monitor and avoid bycatch;
3. Estimating unobserved (cryptic) bycatch and post-interaction mortality rates; and
4. Predicting or managing for changing fisheries risks over time.

We welcome presentations that highlight region and center approaches on how to address these challenges. This session will include a panel discussion of analytical approaches to predict, monitor, and avoid bycatch, as well as the appropriate uses and limitations of those approaches. 

August 28, 2025

2 - 4pm EST

Protected Species Abundance/Distribution Modeling and Data Integration

Co-Chairs: Devin Johnson (PIFSC), Jeff Moore (SWFSC)

There has been substantial advancement in species distribution models such as beyond standard generalized additive model approaches (e.g., machine learning approaches, exploring forecasting and dealing with trends, integrating passive acoustic monitoring or tag data into movement and habitat models, and climate and ensemble models, etc.) that form the basis of many of our spatial planning risk assessment and planning efforts. This session focuses on new/updated/integrated approaches for spatial distribution models, and includes related talks on applications of those tools for risk assessment, spatial management, and potentially integration of results into Stock Assessment Reports.

September 4, 2025

2 - 4pm EST

Detecting and Monitoring Range or Population Shifts

Co-Chairs: Diana Dishman (WCRO), Meghan Gahm (OPR)

This session focuses on efforts to identify the extent of species ranges, monitor shifts in those ranges in response to changing environmental conditions, and understand how population structure, demographics, and gene flow influence species' distributions. What are the crucial data needs for understanding species distribution, and what are innovative approaches to filling key information gaps? How can we monitor population distribution, structure, and demographics to predict likely habitat occupancy in the future?  We include topics such as challenges in studying lesser-known species with limited data, as well as identifying changes and trends for well-studied populations, stocks, or other management units. Approaches to detecting and monitoring species ranges will be presented, as well as investigations of the genetic structure or demographic processes that underlie population connectivity and expansion or contraction within a species' range. Forward-looking evaluations of how species ranges may shift over time in response to environmental changes will also be introduced.

September 11, 2025

2 - 4:30pm EST

Advanced Technology/Platforms in Protected Species Assessments, Conservation, and Management, Session 2 

Co-Chairs: Héloïse Frouin-Mouy (NEFSC), Tara Trinko Lake (NEFSC)

Due to the number of abstract submissions for this topic, we have added this second session. Conservation scientists and managers are often successful in creating innovative solutions to protected species conservation problems by inventing, building or repurposing technology and analytical tools. This session will highlight emerging and advanced technologies or platforms that support research, assessment, and management of protected species. Managers rely on the most up-to-date data on protected species (e.g., presence/absence, abundance, distribution, behavior, etc.) to make informed decisions. As a result, to meet these adaptive management needs, research efforts at NOAA Fisheries and across NOAA are increasingly  leveraging innovative technologies and platforms that enhance the speed and efficiency of data collection and analysis. Examples include camera systems, uncrewed aircraft (UxS, drones), remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles (ROVs,AUVs), passive and active acoustic technologies, machine learning, thermal imaging, remote sensing, instrument/tagging platforms, and decision support tools, among others. This session underscores the critical role of technological innovation for protected species research and conservation.

Training Sessions

PSAW IV is offering three training sessions. Details are provided below. Participants must register for each training session. Trainings are open to NOAA Fisheries personnel, affiliates, and scholars, collaborators, and other NOAA Line Offices. Google Meet information will be emailed to all registrants.

August 19, 2025

2 - 5pm EST (3 hours)

Making Data Management Accessible (Stacie Koslovsky, AFSC) 

Good data management is an important foundation for reproducible science, making data workflows efficient, and ultimately making data publicly available; however, sometimes this can be challenging to implement. In this training, I will give a seminar about accessible data management practices – making sure the information is relevant and valuable for varying levels of skills and experience. Then, I will separate the group into 4-5 breakout rooms where each will have a different data management scenario to work through and discuss for the second portion of the training.

Prerequisites: This training session is targeted at staff at all levels who are interested in data management. Beginners and those a little intimidated by data management are welcome and encouraged to attend!

September 9, 2025

1:30 - 5pm EST (3.5 hours)  

Reproducible science using Quarto (Jonathan Peake, NWFSC)

Reproducible reports are documents that combine analysis code, outputs (like plots or tables), and narratives to ensure that results can be easily replicated and verified by others. They are commonly used in scientific research, data science, and analytics to maintain transparency and reliability. By incorporating both the code and results into one document (or a collection of documents), anyone can run the same analysis on the same data (or updated data) and obtain the same results. Quarto is a software that combines Markdown language and scientific code to produce high-quality, reproducible reports. In this workshop, we will discuss the basics of Quarto and how to leverage this tool to take reproducible science to the next level.

Prerequisites: This training session is targeted at staff interested in learning how to use Quarto for reproducible science. No prior experience with Quarto is required, although a general understanding of either R or Python is suggested. Attendees will follow along with interactive tutorials on the NMFS JupyterHub, which is a shared developing environment accessed through the internet browser. No additional software is required for this workshop.

September 16, 2025

1:30 - 5pm EST (3.5 hours) 

Developing Reproducible SARs w/ Quarto and GitHub (Josh London, Brian Fadely, AFSC)

The AFSC Marine Mammal Laboratory has been working on development of a reproducible workflow for developing SARs using Quarto and GitHub. This workshop will aim to give an overview of the process we have developed and, then, walk participants through the steps to create a skeleton SAR project for their species of interest.

Prerequisites: This training session is targeted at authors of marine mammal stock assessment reports who want to adopt a reproducible framework for their reports with R, Quarto, and GitHub as central tools. Previous experience with R, Quarto (or rmarkdown) is required and users should be comfortable using these tools for reproducible science. GitHub accounts are required. Users should also have a good understanding of the SAR development process and the scientific review group process.

Steering Committee: If you have questions, please contact Erin McMichael (erin.mcmichael@noaa.gov) or your local Steering Committee member:

• Erin McMichael, Lead Workshop Coordinator, OST 
• Meghan Gahm, OPR 
• Tara Trinko Lake, NEFSC
• Heloise Frouin-Mouy, SEFSC
• Kara Shervanick, SERO
• Jeff Moore, SWFSC  
• Diana Dishman, WCRO
• Lukas DeFilippo, AFSC
• Devin Johnson, PIFSC 
• Melissa Snover, PIRO