Distribution and abundance of cetaceans in a wind energy development area offshore of Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Stone, Kelsey M.; Leiter, Sarah M.; Kenney, Robert D.; Wikgren, Brooke; Thompson, Jessica; Taylor, Jessica K. D.; Kraus, Scott D.

doi:10.1007/s11852-017-0526-4

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Advances in acoustic and satellite tracking can now identify important foraging and migration habitats for highly migratory tunas, billfishes, and sharks (Wilson et al, 2005;Curtis et al, 2018) and multiple species of seabirds (Montevecchi et al, 2012), and bats, which have been detected up to 21 km offshore (Sjollema et al, 2014). Expanding analyses could be particularly valuable for cetaceans, which were found to occur in higher than expected numbers in lease areas off southern New England (Stone et al, 2017). Habitat models provide critical baselines for assessing potential overlap of many species with wind lease areas (Roberts et al, 2016); in particular, understanding habitat use by endangered North Atlantic right whales in proximity to lease areas (Davis et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource Occurrence and Productivity in Existing and Proposed Wind Energy Lease Areas on the Northeast US Shelf

et al. 2021

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States in the Northeast United States have the ambitious goal of producing more than 22 GW of offshore wind energy in the coming decades. The infrastructure associated with offshore wind energy development is expected to modify marine habitats and potentially alter the ecosystem services. Species distribution models were constructed for a group of fish and macroinvertebrate taxa resident in the Northeast US Continental Shelf marine ecosystem. These models were analyzed to provide baseline context for impact assessment of lease areas in the Middle Atlantic Bight designated for renewable wind energy installations. Using random forest machine learning, models based on occurrence and biomass were constructed for 93 species providing seasonal depictions of their habitat distributions. We developed a scoring index to characterize lease area habitat use for each species. Subsequently, groups of species were identified that reflect varying levels of lease area habitat use ranging across high, moderate, low, and no reliance on the lease area habitats. Among the species with high to moderate reliance were black sea bass (Centropristis striata), summer flounder (Paralichthys dentatus), and Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), which are important fisheries species in the region. Potential for impact was characterized by the number of species with habitat dependencies associated with lease areas and these varied with a number of continuous gradients. Habitats that support high biomass were distributed more to the northeast, while high occupancy habitats appeared to be further from the coast. There was no obvious effect of the size of the lease area on the importance of associated habitats. Model results indicated that physical drivers and lower trophic level indicators might strongly control the habitat distribution of ecologically and commercially important species in the wind lease areas. Therefore, physical and biological oceanography on the continental shelf proximate to wind energy infrastructure development should be monitored for changes in water column structure and the productivity of phytoplankton and zooplankton and the effects of these changes on the trophic system.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource Occurrence and Productivity in Existing and Proposed Wind Energy Lease Areas on the Northeast US Shelf

et al. 2021

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“…Given the inter‐annual variability in whale occurrence in the Western North Atlantic Ocean (e.g. Hlista, Sosik, Traykovski, Kenney, & Moore, ; Leiter et al, ; Nichols, Kenney, & Brown, ; Stone et al, ), it is clear that multiple years of whale presence data will be needed to establish occurrence patterns and implement effective conservation measures. For example, seasonal management areas (Merrick et al, ) based on limited observations may fail to protect whales moving through this region outside the peak season.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal acoustic occurrence of blue, fin, and North Atlantic right whales in the New York Bight

Muirhead

Warde

Biedron

et al. 2018

Aquatic Conservation

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1. The New York Bight is an extremely busy maritime region, with extensive shipping traffic and commercial fishing activity. It is part of the migratory ranges of a number of cetacean species, and includes threats from ship strikes, noise exposure, and line entanglements. Previous cetacean surveys of the Bight offer limited information on cetacean occurrence and distribution in the region, having been restricted to visual sightings with limited temporal coverage. A passiveacoustic monitoring survey was conducted over a 258-day period to broaden understanding of the seasonal occurrences of blue (Balaenoptera musculus), fin (Balaenoptera physalus), and North Atlantic right (Eubalaena glacialis) whales during late summer, autumn, winter, and early spring. Stationary acoustic recorders were positioned near the entrance to New York Harbour and as a linear transect extending from Long Island to the continental shelf edge.3. Blue, fin, and right whales were detected on 11%, 100%, and 16% of the survey days, respectively. Blue whales were detected offshore during January, February, and March. Fin whales were detected offshore every day, and less often near-shore. Right whales occurred sporadically during every month, but were most often detected at near-shore recorders between late February and mid-May.4. Based on the acoustic data alone, it is unclear exactly how these species are using this habitat, although it is clear that they occur in the area longer than was previously thought. Thus, management practices should incorporate this extended seasonal presence to mitigate any effects on the whales from shipping and fishing activities.

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“…Relevant activities include oil spills (Vander Zanden et al 2016, Reich et al 2017, Wallace et al 2017; the removal of oil and gas platforms from the northern Gulf of Mexico (Rezek et al 2018); the development of marine energies (e.g. wind, tidal current and wave) along the eastern U.S. coast (Bonar et al 2015, Stone et al 2017); dredging, sediment diversion and sand mining along the Louisiana coast (Stone et al 2004, Sha et al 2018; and seagrass restoration (Thorhaug et al 2017) among others. These models may be particularly useful for giving an indication whether fisheries bycatch of sea turtles in certain areas is increasing or decreasing due to management actions (e.g.…”

Section: Application and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicted distributions and abundances of the sea turtle ‘lost years’ in the western North Atlantic Ocean

Putman¹,

Seney

Verley

et al. 2019

Ecography

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Oceanic dispersal characterizes the early juvenile life‐stages of numerous marine species of conservation concern. This early stage may be a ‘critical period’ for many species, playing an overriding role in population dynamics. Often, relatively little information is available on their distribution during this period, limiting the effectiveness of efforts to understand environmental and anthropogenic impacts on these species. Here we present a simple model to predict annual variation in the distribution and abundance of oceanic‐stage juvenile sea turtles based on species’ reproductive output, movement and mortality. We simulated dispersal of 25 cohorts (1993–2017) of oceanic‐stage juveniles by tracking the movements of virtual hatchling sea turtles released in a hindcast ocean circulation model. We then used estimates of annual hatchling production from Kemp's ridley Lepidochelys kempii (n = 3), green Chelonia mydas (n = 8) and loggerhead Caretta caretta (n = 5) nesting areas in the northwestern Atlantic (inclusive of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and eastern seaboard of the U.S.) and their stage‐specific mortality rates to weight dispersal predictions. The model's predictions indicate spatial heterogeneity in turtle distribution across their marine range, identify locations of increasing turtle abundance (notably along the U.S. coast), and provide valuable context for temporal variation in the stranding of young sea turtles across the Gulf of Mexico. Further effort to collect demographic, distribution and behavioral data that refine, complement and extend the utility of this modeling approach for sea turtles and other dispersive marine taxa is warranted. Finally, generating these spatially‐explicit predictions of turtle abundance required extensive international collaboration among scientists; our findings indicate that continued conservation of these sea turtle populations and the management of the numerous anthropogenic activities that operate in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean will require similar international coordination.

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Distribution and abundance of cetaceans in a wind energy development area offshore of Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Cited by 11 publications

References 38 publications

Resource Occurrence and Productivity in Existing and Proposed Wind Energy Lease Areas on the Northeast US Shelf

Resource Occurrence and Productivity in Existing and Proposed Wind Energy Lease Areas on the Northeast US Shelf

Seasonal acoustic occurrence of blue, fin, and North Atlantic right whales in the New York Bight

Predicted distributions and abundances of the sea turtle ‘lost years’ in the western North Atlantic Ocean

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