Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L00289:body:0:p35
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L00289
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 107577–110914

whether their proposal should be referred in accordance with the EPBC Act.

      * Marine reserves - ensuring that southern right whale habitat requirements are considered in the establishment and management of marine conservation areas and reserves through the Commonwealth marine bioregional planning process and through state and territory processes.

      * EPBC Act Referrals - ensuring that proposals are adequately assessed and reviewed and that appropriate measures are in place to mitigate any potential impacts on southern right whales from approved activities, including using the seismic guidelines. Under the referrals process, proposed seismic surveys may also have timing restrictions imposed such that the survey cannot take place in the vicinity of southern right whale calving areas during the southern right whale calving period.

      * State and territory legislative arrangements - regulating activities occurring in state or territory waters.

      * State and territory government partnerships - working with state and territory governments to improve knowledge and maintain and improve existing protection for southern right whales. Partnerships include data sharing, community awareness raising, whale watching regulations, seasonal closures (such as the closures at the Head of Bight and Logans Beach at Warrnambool), the Development of a National Guidance Document for Cetacean Incidents (disentanglement, strandings and euthanasia), support for the informal national disentanglement network, standardising relevant legislation and cross-jurisdictional processes, management of coastal development and the necropsy of carcasses, including retaining genetic samples for population analyses. New initiatives include activities such as the state‑based development of seismic survey guidelines currently occurring in Western Australia and Victoria. The Australian Government will work with state and territory agencies to develop agreement on the roles and responsibilities of each partner in implementing recovery actions for southern right whales.

Existing research actions
At the time of writing, the following southern right whale research projects that will improve knowledge on key threats and provide information that will be required for future recovery actions were completed or underway. These include:

      * Monitoring population dynamics of right whales off southern Australia – continuing long-term monitoring for the south-west population.

      * Census and photo identification at Head of Bight, South Australia – continuing a long-term photo-identification and breeding site census at Head of Bight, South Australia.

      * Surveys of the south-east region - status, structure and distribution of southern right whales in south-east Australia - improving understanding of status of the population within south-east Australia via ongoing collection and analysis of genetic samples and photo-identification data.

      * Australasian Right Whale Photo-identification Catalogue – producing a single Australasian southern right whale photo-identification catalogue to assist in combining the current Australian photo-identification datasets and gain further knowledge about southern right whale movements81, 101.

      * Habitat use and distribution patterns of southern right whales and