Beacon Wind Digital Aerial Wildlife Surveys for BOEM Lease Area OCS-A 0520, Equinor Wind US LLC, March 2021 – October 2021

APEM Inc. and Normandeau Associates Inc.

Equinor Wind US, LLC were committed to undertaking a Construction and Operation Plan (COP) of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Lease Area Outer Continental Shelf (OCS-A) 0520, now called Beacon Wind. To facilitate this, 12 surveys were undertaken by APEM Inc. and Normandeau Associates, Inc. (Normandeau-APEM Team) between March 2021 and October 2021 to provide baseline information for consideration in the assessment of potential impacts. Additional surveys were collected between December 2019 and November 2020 and can be accessed at https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/2192.

Equinor initiated monthly offshore high resolution aerial surveys of marine mega-fauna in the Massachusetts Lease Area plus a 4 km (2.5 mile) buffer. The surveys used APEM Inc.'s ultra-high resolution aerial digital still imagery. The aims and objectives of the work are to assess the abundance and distribution of birds, marine mammals, sharks, rays, and turtles
present in the Lease Area OCS-A 0520 over the course of the spring to fall period. The surveys will provide the baseline information required for conducting impact assessments and are consistent with the survey guidelines for providing avian, marine mammal, and sea turtle information for renewable energy development on the OCS (BOEM 2017 and 2019). The
dataset is comprised of observations and survey track line information collected from March 2021 to October 2021 (12 surveys in total) APEM analyzed the images to enumerate birds to species level, and to enumerate any other non-avian marine fauna. Normandeau
provided quality assurance (QA) of the data.

[2022-06-06] The following recorded species names got their assigned scientific names corrected.
BILLFISH SPECIES: Alcidae => Istiophoridae
LARGE GULL SPECIES: Leucophaeus atricilla => Ciconiiformes
SEAL SPECIES: Otariidae => Caniformia
SANDBAR SHARK: Calidris alba => Carcharhinus plumbeus

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
fid	Field ID
bird_no	Bird No
easting	Easting
northing	Northing
behavior	Behavior
bodylength	Body length
carapacele	carapace length
wingspan	Wing span
heading	Heading
grouping	Grouping
commonname	Species common name
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
obs_count	Number of animals (always 1)
source	Source image
uid	UID
age	Age
sex	Sex
dateddmmyy	Sighting date (dd/mm/yy)
obs_date	Sighting date (mm/dd/yy)
obs_time	Sighting time at local time zone
utctimehhm	Sighting time at UTC
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP