Ocean Conservation Research

In 2014, OCR was listed as a plaintiff in a California state lawsuit that attempted to limit U.S. Navy training activities off the state’s coast due to allegations of ocean noise pollution caused by military activities such as sonar use and explosives.  ² In 2022, the Biden administration settled the lawsuit with an agreement to cut the amount of training activities off the California coast.  ²

Background

Ocean Conservation Research (OCR) was founded in 2007 by Michael Stocker, who worked as an acoustician specializing in underwater acoustics and the impact of ocean sound on marine life. ³  Stocker previously described his work as “trying to make sense of where biology, physics, policy, industry, and commerce all jangle up against each other.” ⁴

OCR was initially a fiscally sponsored project of the Ocean Foundation but in 2022 it became an independent charitable nonprofit in 2022.  ^{5  6}

Stocker has been critical of the Trump administration’s environmental policies, calling revisions to the National Environmental Protection Act review procedures “hideous.”  ^{7  8}

Activities

In November 2024, Michael Stocker presented research at the Acoustical Society of America’s annual meeting where he claimed there was a correlation between an increase in whale deaths off the coast of New Jersey between 2022 and 2023 and survey work being done towards offshore wind turbine construction. ⁹ The claim was rejected by U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, which argued there was no evidence that tied whale deaths to the survey work.  ⁹

Ocean Conservation Research (OCR) claimed to have previously developed a “Whale Identification for Ship Strike Prevention (WISSP)” system that could track the path of whales within active offshore shipping channels based on audio signals. The WISSP would then broadcast those locations through the global Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking network in order to prevent ships and other vessels from colliding with them. ¹⁰

OCR has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council to oppose fossil fuel exploration and production in the Arctic, using underwater audio recordings of oil and gas exploration and production to argue that acoustic pollution from those activities under the Arctic icepack was harming wildlife. ¹¹

Lawsuit Against Naval Training

In 2014, Stocker and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the U.S. Navy’s Southern California training and testing ranges, arguing that the Navy’s plan to increase sonar and explosives use during training exercises in those areas violated the National Environmental Policy Act. ² The suit also claimed that increased Navy training could lead to increased ocean noise pollution and result in the deaths of up to 140 whales and dolphins, while causing “permanent injury” for up to 2,000 more marine animals.  ²

The suit, Natural Resources Defense Council, et al. v. National Marine Fisheries Service, was led by the NRDC, joined by Stocker, Cetacean Society International, Animal Legal Defense Fund, and the Pacific Environment and Resources Center.  ² In 2017, the federal courts consolidated that case with a similar suit in Hawai’i, and in 2022 the Biden administration settled the combined case by agreeing to limit Navy training exercises in areas around Catalina Island and San Diego, as well as instituting lower speed limits for naval vessels in whale feeding and migratory corridors. ²

Opposition to Nuclear Power

See also Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Ocean Conservation Research was one of over 650 signatories on an August 2022 letter organized by People vs Fossil Fuels and addressed to the “Democratic Leadership” in Congress. The letter was titled: “Opposition to Fossil Fuel Project Approvals and Permitting Reforms Conditioned on the Inflation Reduction Act.” ¹² In addition to traditional oil and gas exploration and production, the letter also opposed a variety of other forms of energy generation and greenhouse gas mitigation, including “carbon capture, hydrogen, biomass, biofuels, factory farm gas, and nuclear power.”  ¹²

Funding

In 2012, Ocean Conservation Research posted a list of funders to its website. They included the Ocean Foundation, Esna Fund, Mental Insight Foundation, Marisla Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Community Foundation of East Michigan, Hawley Family Foundation, Norcross Wildlife Foundation, Campbell Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, and individual donors.  ¹³

In 2020, it received a grant from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. ¹⁴