The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are offering this grant to improve detection and classification of marine wildlife through photogrammetric aerial surveys for the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS) III C.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are in the process of conducting high-resolution aerial imagery surveys under the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program (AMAPPS). The objective of AMAPPS is to provide baseline data on regional and seasonal species abundance and distribution in the nearshore and offshore environments to aid decision-making concerning offshore development, transportation, military exercises, and conservation. The AMAPPS collaboration has entered its third phase. The overarching goal of this third phase is to develop cost-efficient remote sensing- and machine learning-based methods to survey and monitor marine birds and other wildlife to improve the quality of population estimates and distribution mapping while enhancing personnel safety.BOEM is seeking subject matter experts to classify seabirds, marine mammals and other marine wildlife to the lowest taxonomic level in aerial imagery.The primary objective of this segment of AMAPPS is to enlist expertise in marine wildlife species identification through the Cooperative Environmental Studies Units (CESU) program to classify detected wildlife targets in imagery collected by AMAPPS to an appropriate taxonomic level utilizing remote access to an imagery annotation tool developed at USGS-UMESC and implementing the annotation quality control workflow developed by USGS-UMESC, BOEM, and USFWS. 

Classification-level annotation development of wildlife targets in high-resolution imagery supporting the Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS)Open to:

The North Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (NAC – CESU)
Chesapeake Watershed Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CHW CESU)
The Piedmont-South Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (PSAC-CESU)

The award will be a cooperative agreement (see Eligibility Information below). This involves substantial involvement by BOEM scientists in various aspects of study development and/or study conduct.
 

Eligibility Information
Research projects are required to have a staff member of the applying organization as the Principal Investigator (PI). Cooperative research between interested organizations—i.e., state agencies, public universities, and non-profits in affected states—is always encouraged.

Cost Share/Match: Contributions of matching funds towards these efforts, either as cash or in- kind contributions (such as salary, equipment, etc., or a combination of both) is very strongly encouraged. Match cannot include value associated with collection costs for samples previously collected. Match value for instrumentation and other equipment should be adjusted to the period of use within the project relative to the full life cycle for the item. Written documentation for the assessed match for ship time (if applicable) shall provide a fair assessment of costs relevant to the project.  Matching dollars cannot be from other Federal funding sources.  Further information can be located at 2 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 200.306. All questions regarding this project, including eligibility, should be directed only to the “Program Announcement and Cooperative Agreement Questions” point-of-contact listed in Section G.

The primary objective of this segment of AMAPPS is to enlist expertise in marine wildlife species identification through the Cooperative Environmental Studies Units (CESU) program to classify detected wildlife targets in imagery collected by AMAPPS to an appropriate taxonomic level utilizing remote access to an imagery annotation tool developed at USGS-UMESC and implementing the annotation quality control workflow developed by USGS-UMESC, BOEM, and USFWS.