This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Research Plan 2024 project "Potential impacts of offshore wind developments on eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda)". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

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Pygmy blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) are listed as Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC 1999), and their distribution and Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) overlap with areas proposed for offshore renewable energy (ORE) development in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and potentially NSW. This project will quantify the distribution and location of areas of residency (e.g., foraging) for eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue whales, where these overlap with proposed ORE developments, and assess the potential impacts of these developments to the species in addition to existing impacts from other anthropogenic activities.

The outputs from this project will assist government, regulators, proponents, and other stakeholders in the assessment and mitigation of ORE projects to this threatened species, and will identify future research and associated data collection needs.

Outputs

• Spatial layers quantifying the relative distribution including migratory corridors and foraging areas across the known eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue whale range [dataset]

• Spatial layers of habitat suitability distribution [dataset]

• Spatial layers for human activities identified as key pressures in this study [dataset]

• Spatial layers of cumulative impact score across the species' range including potential threats from ORE and existing threats from other industries [dataset]

• Final project report [written]