Using a mark-recapture model to estimate beaching probability of seabirds killed in nearshore waters during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

ABSTRACT: During a marine oil spill, injured birds often die on the water, some eventually washing ashore, but others becoming waterlogged and sinking or being scavenged before reaching the shoreline. Birds that disappear before they can be deposited on the shoreline are difficult to enumerate, but they commonly represent a large fraction of total oil spill-related mortality. As part of the process of quantifying the overall impact to seabirds resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it was necessary to estimate the number of dead birds lost at sea. We conducted a study to estimate the beaching probability of birds that died at sea in the Gulf of Mexico in the areas most heavily used by seabirds and impacted by the spill. Using a mark-recapture analysis to derive the beaching probability from

SUBMITTER: Himes Boor GK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7078145 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature