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This report presents long-term seasonal distribution maps of selected seabird, pinniped and cetacean species off the Pacific coast of Washington. The maps were created to support state-led marine spatial planning and responsible stewardship of natural resources by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. They are intended to distinguish persistent areas of high relative density from areas of low relative density, and are useful for identifying ecologically important areas, recognizing and mitigating impacts from human uses and coastal hazards, and improving our understanding of marine environments. Predicted relative density distribution maps were constructed using associative models linking at-sea species observations with environmental covariates. Associative models relied on species observations compiled from federal, state, and non-governmental monitoring programs with data between 1995 and 2014. Environmental variables, such as depth, sea surface temperature, and indices of primary productivity, were processed from long-term archival satellite, oceanographic, and hydrographic databases. The compilation of at-sea species observations represents the first attempt to combine eleven selected survey programs, and is a substantial combination of nearshore and offshore survey effort. As far as we are aware, the compilation prepared for this report is the largest synthesis of recent seabird, pinniped, and cetacean observations in the study area, in terms of both number of observations and number of programs combined. A boosted generalized additive modeling framework was applied to associate seabird and environmental covariate data sets and develop contiguous, accurate predictions of relative density. To improve model performance, the modeling framework allowed for flexible relationships and multi-way interactions between environmental variables while accounting for sampling heterogeneity between and within datasets. Model performance was assessed using cross validation and a range of model fit and bias diagnostics. All models showed good performance based on model performance diagnostics, and expert reviewers agreed all maps were valuable representations of species distributions. Reviewers included ecologists, coastal resource managers, and modelers from multiple agencies and organizations. These maps represent an important step towards improving our understanding of the long-term spatial distributions of selected seabirds, pinnipeds, and cetaceans, identifying persistent hotspots of relative densities, and more effectively planning offshore human activities. The seabird, pinniped, and cetacean predictions are already being used by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to identify ecologically important areas off the Pacific Coast of Washington, and they intend to utilize this information in planning for offshore renewable energy development.

Interest in development of offshore renewable energy facilities has led to a need for high-quality, statistically robust information on marine wildlife distributions. A practical approach is described to estimate the amount of sampling effort required to have sufficient statistical power to identify species specific “hotspots” and “coldspots” of marine bird abundance and occurrence in an offshore environment divided into discrete spatial units (e.g., lease blocks), where “hotspots” and “coldspots” are defined relative to a reference (e.g., regional) mean abundance and/or occurrence probability for each species of interest. For example, a location with average abundance or occurrence that is three times larger the mean (3x effect size) could be defined as a “hotspot,” and a location that is three times smaller than the mean (1/3x effect size) as a “coldspot.” The choice of the effect size used to define hot and coldspots will generally depend on a combination of ecological and regulatory considerations. A method is also developed for testing the statistical significance of possible hotspots and coldspots. Both methods are illustrated with historical seabird survey data from the USGS Avian Compendium Database. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 158

This report provides a compilation of new maps and spatial assessments for seabirds, bathymetry, surficial sediments, deep sea corals, and oceanographic habitats in support of offshore spatial planning led by the New York Department of State Ocean and Great Lakes Program. These diverse ecological themes represent priority information gaps left by past assessments and were requested by New York to better understand and balance ocean uses and environmental conservation in the Atlantic. The main goal of this report is to translate raw ecological, geomorphological and oceanographic data into maps and assessments that can be easily used and understood by coastal managers involved in offshore spatial planning. New York plans to integrate information in this report with other ecological, geophysical and human use data to obtain a broad perspective on the ocean environment, human uses and their interactions. New York will then use this information in an ecosystem-based framework to coordinate and support decisions balancing competing demands in their offshore environment, and ultimately develop a series of amendments to New York’s federally approved Coastal Management Program. The targeted users of this report and the compiled spatial information are New York coastal managers, but other State and federal decision-makers, offshore renewable energy development interests and environmental advocates will also find the information useful. In addition, the data and approaches will be useful to regional spatial planning initiatives set up by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO) and federal regional planning bodies for coastal and marine spatial planning.