This product represents the survey effort for 2018-2020 Gulf of America Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species surveys and the subsequent 2022-2023 U.S. Fish and Wildlife aerial surveys in the northern Gulf of America.

If a transect was not flown, it is absent for the corresponding survey period. This data view is important and can be used along with air all observations to infer zero value transects, by species or species group.

This seabird survey in the northern Gulf of America was conducted as part of the Bureau of Energy Management’s Gulf of America Marine Assessment Project for Protected Species (GoAMAPPS: 2017-2020), with additional surveys supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS; 2022-2023). Surveys were conducted during January and February (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023) and July (2018, 2022) based on lessons learned from a pilot-effort in July of 2017. All surveys were conducted from USFWS Quest Kodiak amphibious aircraft at 200 feet AGL from the USA-Mexico border near Brownsville, TX to Key West, FL including the Dry Tortugas. Surveys extended from the shoreline out to 50 miles for 2018-2020 and were subsequently extended to 100 miles offshore in 2022 and 2023. Using the US Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program’s 40 sq km hexagon sampling grid and a generalized random tessellation stratified sampling technique, we drew a random sample of 180 hexagons to survey in 2018-2020. In 2022 and 2023 and additional 20-hegaons were selected within the BOEM Wind Energy Planning Area. We then selected a random flight direction for each hexagon, which defined two additional, adjacent hexagons thereby increasing the spatial coverage and creating a three-hexagon sampling unit. Each sampling unit consists of three parallel 10 mile transects spaced 1 mile apart, resulting in approximately 30 mile of transect per sampling unit.

File goamapps_air_effort_forDistribution.csv and both an html and xml metadata file are included.

For more information, consult the associated metadata.