IMIS

On November 1, 2013, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced Dominion Virginia Power was the provisional winner of the commercial lease area offshore of Virginia (VA WEA). Development of off shore wind energy poses potential threats to marine mammals, including direct effects (i.e. vessel interactions, collision and entanglement with structures, displacement, avoidance, or injury due to noise from construction or operations) and indirect threats (i.e. effects on prey species, increased risk of fishery and vessel interaction through displacement out of the WEA) (BOEM 2012). This information is important to mitigate the potentially harmful impacts from ocean development, shipping, and other anthropogenic activities. To address these existing data gaps, we have collected marine mammal and sea turtle aerial survey sighting data off the coast of Virginia from May 2014 to 2015.

The original survey data are separated into two datasets, collected from left-side and right-side observers to address variance in environmental and sighting conditions. This dataset is from the left side sightings data. The right side sightings data are available on OBIS-SEAMAP in the Virginia CZM Wind Energy Area Survey - Right side - May 2014 through December 2014 dataset (http://www.vliz.be/nl/imis?module=dataset&dasid=5389).

Both on- and off-effort sightings are included.

The effort data layer, for this project is static transect lines. The plane track lines are available by request.