Ron Armonath, Assistant District Staff Officer for Marine Safety-Marine Environment Programs for the Coast Guard Auxiliary in Massachusetts, has been named National Marine Sanctuaries Volunteer of the Year by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.
He received the award at the foundation’s annual awards dinner at Capitol Hill Oceans Week in Washington, DC on June 8. Armonath trains and manages 10 to 12 volunteers in six ports who collect data on local whale watch vessel tracks. THe information has helped the sanctuary compile a typical “day in the life” of the sanctuary.
Used in conjunction with the Automatic Identification System (an international safety system that tracks the movement of vessels) and fishing vessel data from NOAA Fisheries, the sanctuary has been able to better characterize commercial uses and visualize pressures on the system at different times of the day in different parts of the sanctuary. His work assists researches analyzing noise levels in the sanctuary may affect marine mammals.
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