White et al. (2024c)
Author Information
Laney White, Jonathan Felis, Josh Adams, and Emma Kelsey: USGS Western Ecological Research Center (WERC)
Alex Rinkert: California State Parks
David Pereksta: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
Ben Becker: National Park Service (NPS) and University of California Berkeley
USGS WERC Seabird Studies Team: Northern California PSG Regional Report 2024
Jonathan Felis, Josh Adams, and Laney White (USGS Western Ecological Research Center (WERC)), with observer support from Alex Rinkert (California State Parks), continued long-term (1999–present) at-sea Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) surveys in Conservation Zone 6 in central California to estimate murrelet abundance and reproductive output in 2023. This long-term monitoring project was funded by the Luckenbach Oil Spill Trustee Council and will be funded through 2028 by California State Parks. The 2023 monitoring efforts leveraged updated methodology developed through a retrospective evaluation of murrelet status, trend, and monitoring effectiveness using this time series by Jonathan Felis, Josh Adams, and Ben Becker (NPS and UC Berkeley) with support from California State Parks:
Felis, J., Adams, J., and Becker, B., 2023, Status, trend, and monitoring effectiveness of Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) at sea abundance and reproductive output off central California, 1999–2021: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2023–1065, 47 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20231065.
Josh Adams, Emma Kelsey, and Jonathan Felis (USGS WERC), in collaboration with David Pereksta (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; BOEM), are updating their original 2017 report with new information about the vulnerability of seabirds to collision and displacement associated with offshore wind energy infrastructure in the California Current System.
Laney White, Jonathan Felis, and Josh Adams (USGS WERC) opportunistically deployed and recovered acoustic sensors and conducted nest searches to monitor for Ashy Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma homochroa) at remote offshore sites along the California coast from Mendocino to San Luis Obispo counties. This effort was in coordination with USGS WERC effort to deploy bat acoustic sensors offshore.
