Florida Gulf Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network
Implementing Organization
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; State of Florida
Overview
DWH Project Funding
$5,000,000
Known Leveraged Funding
$0
Funding Organization
Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees (NRDA)
Funding Program
Natural Resource Damage Assessment NRDA
Details
Project Category
Environmental
Project Actions
Species Restoration
Targeted Resources
Marine Mammals
Project Description
The project will maintain the Florida Gulf Coast's Marine Mammal Stranding Network (MMSN) capabilities to identify, characterize, and quantify marine mammal morbidity and mortality factors and provide conservation managers critical and timely information needed to inform effective actions and plans aimed at mitigating or eliminating threats to marine mammal species. Mortality investigations will also provide a critical feedback loop to help assess the effectiveness of management actions over time. This project will continue the work funded through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation-Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund (NFWF-GEBF) project on Increased Capacity for Marine Mammal Response and Analysis. Specifically, this project will: - Support personnel, equipment, stranding, training, or other professionally related travel, vehicle fuel, and maintenance of vehicles/vessels/trailers to federally permitted Gulf MMSN organizations to rapidly respond to live and dead stranded marine mammals on the Gulf Coast of Florida; - Maintain data collection, reporting, collaboration, and consistency across the MMSN; - Maintain response time to live or dead stranded marine mammals; - Maintain MMSN capacity to respond to unusual natural or anthropogenic events (e.g., oil spills, harmful algal blooms, freshwater events, hurricanes); - Maintain MMSN capacity to perform necropsies to understand marine mammal health and threats to support effective conservation management of marine mammals across the region. The goal of this project is to increase marine mammal survival through improving understanding of key causes of morbidity and mortality and...click on "More Info" link below
Contact
Gareth Leonard(850) 617-9452
gareth.leonard@myfwc.com
Project Website
None
For official trustee information regarding the Deepwater Horizon NRDA, including information regarding the NRDA process and the status of projects, see https://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/