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

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.

Assessing cetacean populations using integrated population models: an example with Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Effective conservation and management of animal populations requires knowledge of abundance and trends. For many species, these quantities are estimated using systematic visual surveys. Additional individual-level data are available for some species.

Mechanism matters: the cause of fluctuations in boom-bust populations governs optimal habitat restoration strategy.

Many populations exhibit boom-bust dynamics in which abundance fluctuates dramatically over time. Past research has focused on identifying whether the cause of fluctuations is primarily exogenous, e.g.

A framework for developing objective and measurable recovery criteria for threatened and endangered species.

For species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), the U.