In April 2010, The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill originated in the deep sea 1,500 m below the ocean surface at the edge of the continental shelf off Louisiana. Surface and sub-surface dispersal of the oil eventually encompassed an area of over 200,000 km2. Impacts of DWH on biota of the Gulf of Mexico were severe, wide-spread, and are ongoing even a decade after the spill. Because of its offshore origin, the spill caused injury to many resources on the continental shelf, including important reef fish species (e.g., snappers and groupers, etc.) and protected species including sea turtles. Habitats which these species occupy were oiled which resulted in the loss of key supporting plant and animal species. Because so little of the offshore habitat of reef fish species and sea turtles was mapped and characterized prior to the spill, restoration efforts aimed at improving degraded habitats and strengthening species populations proved difficult.
This project was specifically developed to discover additional, high conservation value, habitats of reef fishes and sea turtles on the continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico off Florida (the West Florida Shelf, WFS). The goal of the project was to map such habitats and quantify the density and biodiversity of species occupying them, and to facilitate additional conservation management decisions to enhance their long-term sustainability. The project resulted in mapping and classifying and characterizing 2,350 km2 of heretofore unmapped habitats, the development of new methods to extrapolate habitat types from a sub-sample from video surveys, and new technologies to automate the counting and identification of fish species and habitat features using artificial intelligence. Project personnel have presented these materials to the competent management authorities responsible for fish and sea turtle management. Here we provide technical detail on the methods, procedures and findings from this project.Funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund (2015 - 2020
