US Navy marine mammal and sea turtle sightings from aerial surveys, Vieques, Puerto Rico 2000

Original provider: Andrew DiMatteo, US Navy Dataset credits: U.S. Department of the Navy Abstract: Geo-Marine, Inc. (GMI), under contract with the U.S. Deptartment of the Navy, conducted aerial surveys for manatees, other marine mammals, and sea turtles over the surrounding waters, and for sea turtle nests along the beaches of Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. The intent of these aerial surveys was to determine the presence of sea turtles, sea turtle nests, or marine mammals in the areas surrounding the Live Impact Area (LIA), Yellow Beach within the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility (AFWTF), or other identified exercise locations around Vieques, Naval Station Roosevelt Roads (NSRR), and Offshore areas. These surveys were conducted to comply with the Biological Opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Purpose: Baseline information regarding protected natural resources is critical in order to assess the potential impacts of federal action to those resources. Here, aerial surveys were conducted to provide baseline information on marine mammals, birds, and sea turtles utilizing beaches and the surrounding waters of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, USA. Portions of the island are currently being remediated by the U.S. Navy under CERCLA. These data were used in support of developing biological evaluations of Navy activities under CERCLA. Supplemental information: [2020-09-30] The following invalid species names were corrected according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). Turtles: Testudines (173749) => Testudines (948936) One sighting record on land was excluded.
December 17, 2013: Nesting data from this study were contributed to the State of the World's Sea Turtles (SWOT) database and can be viewed online. (Click the icon next to the "SWOT #nesting records" > type in "Andrew DiMatteo" in the search box within the "SWOT Nesting Records on Map" window.)