Gulka et al. (2025)

Author Information

Julia Gulka, Evan Adams, Kate Williams, and Kim Lato: Biodiversity Research Institute

Lesley Thorne and Esther Nosazeogie: Stony Brook University

Doug Nowacek: Duke University

The goal of this project is to understand the impacts to wildlife (including seabirds) from the first commercial-scale offshore wind development in the U.S. Atlantic. As part of this effort, we have been deploying GPS-GSM tags on Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus, GBBG) (n=60) and Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus, NOGA) (n=60) in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York with a focus on year-round movement for GBBG and non-breeding season movement patterns for NOGA in relation to offshore wind development. Tags were deployed during the 2023-2024 breeding seasons for GBBG and during fall/winter 2023-2025 for NOGA using at sea capture techniques. During deployments we have also been collecting blood and feathers for stable isotope analysis, contaminants, High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), parasites, and other related efforts along with diet and fecal samples for eDNA analysis. Spring 2025 is the final planned tag deployment for the project, with future focus on data analysis.