Threatened and Endangered

USGS researchers and heir partners are capturing and banding birds that use man-made habitats to gather data on species occurrence, abundance, and energetic condition during autumn migration.

USGS is working with partners to understand how the federally protected Florida manatee ( Trichechus manatus latirostris) population changes over time and responds to threats.

A multi-agency effort assesses the health of manatees and provides baseline information on their health, reproductive status, and nutritional condition.

USGS WARC ecologists are assisting partners in conducting avian surveys on Chandeleur Islands during the pre-restoration monitoring phase to document threatened and endangered species, species richness and diversity, species abundance, and habitat use.

The federally threatened piping plover relies on sand-beach habitat year-round for nesting, foraging, and roosting, habitat that is particularly vulnerable to loss and degradation from coastal development, recreation activities, erosion, and sea-level rise.

The over-arching goal of GoAMAPPS is to collect broad-scale survey data for seabirds, marine mammals and sea turtles to determine distribution and abundance in the Gulf.

A new study aims to collect information on sturgeon temporal and spatial distribution to inform offshore wind energy and sand leasing operations.

The Gulf sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi, has been listed as Threatened since 1991. Beginning in 1986, USGS has been investigating sturgeon population abundance and ecology throughout its range, but mostly in the Suwannee River.

The USGS is participating in the Louisiana-Trustee Implementation Group Monitoring and Adaptive Management work group to assess the injuries caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to select the appropriate restoration measures to compensate the public for the injury to coastal and marine resources.

Researchers are developing acceleration data logger pop-off packages that can be affixed to sea turtles to collect behavioral patterns of diving, surfacing, and general activity levels.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) uses trawling to capture and relocate live sea turtles away from dredging locations to minimize the risk of turtle entrainment. These incidental turtle captures provide a unique opportunity to fill critical data gaps for difficult to capture life-stages of marine turtles.

Turbid water conditions make the delineation and characterization of benthic habitats difficult by traditional in situ and remote sensing methods. Consequently, only a small fraction of this valuable resource has been mapped or characterized.