Open Ocean

The seabird species being restored by this project experienced mortality and lost productivity as a result of the DWH oil spill. These seabirds nest on islands and spend the non-nesting season in the Gulf of America. This project will increase seabird nesting success and productivity through the removal of invasive plants and animals and the reestablishment of native plants and seabird colonies at Mona Island, Puerto Rico. Restoration activities will occur over eight to ten years and will be conducted in phases.

The project will implement a multi-year, phased activity to plan and develop an approach leveraging the applicable, standardized U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Coastal Condition Assessment protocols as well as fisheries population and food web evaluation protocols.

The seabird species being restored by this project experienced mortality and lost productivity as a result of the DWH oil spill. These seabirds nest on islands and spend the non-nesting season in the Gulf of America.

Common terns experienced mortality and lost productivity as a result of the DWH oil spill. These seabirds spend the non-nesting season in the Gulf of America. The project will protect and enhance nesting habitat and reestablish breeding colonies for common terns in Manitoba, Canada by implementing a suite of restoration, stewardship, and conservation techniques.

This project will reduce mortality of northern gannets by implementing a suite of restoration and conservation techniques at known nesting locations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, and/or Quebec, Canada.

This project will reduce incidental mortality of great shearwaters, northern gannets, and other seabirds injured by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by testing seabird bycatch reduction strategies. The oil spill had a large impact on northern gannets and great shearwaters. These seabirds use the offshore waters of the northern U.S. Atlantic coastline for feeding and resting during their nesting season and migration.

This project will collect and analyze data to directly assess benefits to Fish and Water Column Invertebrates, Marine Mammals, and Sea Turtles associated with Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Community restoration conducted in the Open Ocean restoration area. This project will collect three years of new data to quantify connections between Marine Mammal, Sea Turtle, Fish and Water Column Invertebrate and Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Community habitats by monitoring species distributions, abundances, habitat use, community composition, and trophic dynamics at select locations in the Gulf.

This planning activity will produce a draft and final restoration plan for Restoration Types that could include Fish and Water Column Invertebrates and Sea Turtles.

The project will develop a feasible and cost-effective framework to evaluate the cumulative outcomes of Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) restoration projects for marine mammals and sea turtles in the Open Ocean Restoration Area. This will be done using a Structured Decision Making (SDM) process that incorporates expert elicitation techniques to quantify the benefits of Open Ocean restoration actions.

This activity will synthesize available information on priority habitats, habitat use, and movement of Open Ocean resources (Gulf sturgeon, mesophotic and deep benthic communities, and focal species representing marine mammals, sea turtles, birds, fish, and water column invertebrates) and threats affecting these resources. Examination of the overlap between threats and resources will help identify locations where threat reduction projects may have greater impact, and serve as a baseline against which the Trustee Implementation Group's threat reduction work may be evaluated.