Description
This notice is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. The intent of the award is to provide new information on the movements of the Federally-endangered North Atlantic Roseate Tern (Sterna dougallii) population and the Federally-threatened Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) within the Atlantic OCS region to migratory stopover sites and wintering areas in the Caribbean. This will allow assessment of the degree to which Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers use offshore Federal waters during their breeding, staging, and migratory periods. This information will be critical for making decisions about where to site proposed offshore and coastal wind energy facilities in the future to minimize adverse impacts on Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers, and for monitoring their movements through existing wind energy areas that have already been sited. Additional tracking stations in the Caribbean will allow Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers to be tracked, for the first time, through the entire duration of their fall migratory flights in the Atlantic OCS. In addition, these new tracking stations will allow for a preliminary evaluation of site-use at migratory stopover destinations in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas. Results of this aspect of the study will inform prioritization and protection of key Roseate Tern migration stopover areas and Piping Plover wintering sites. Specifically, this project will use nano-tag transmitter technology and a network of receivers to track Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers. Capture and tagging will occur at sites along the northeastern U.S. Atlantic coast. Piping Plovers will be captured on their breeding grounds during the incubation period. Roseate Terns will be captured during two phases. The first of phase will occur during the breeding period, to collect data during the chick-rearing period, and the second phase will occur during the post-breeding period to ensure tag retention through migration. Both species will be tracked using an array of automated radio telemetry stations along the U.S. Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. Existing data analysis methods will be utilized to assess the exposure of Roseate Terns and Piping Plovers to offshore wind energy facilities in the Atlantic OCS, and examine timing, length of stay, and use of migratory stopover and wintering sites in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region, intends to make a sole source award of an cooperative agreement to the University of Rhode Island. Funding for this project is provided under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 as amended, 16 U.S.C. 742a -754, and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, 16 U.S.C. 2901-2911. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is mandated to protect migratory bird species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), with additional protections for species listed as Endangered or Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (1973).