API 355 : 2009

1.0 INTRODUCTION
2.0 ALTERNATIVE METHODS FOR ESTIMATING AVIAN MORTALITY
    2.1 LITERATURE TRANSFER
    2.2 SWEPT THROUGH CALCULATIONS
    2.3 BEACHED BIRD MODELING
    2.4 CHOOSING A MORTALITY ESTIMATING METHOD
    2.5 DECISION MAKING WITHIN THE NRD FRAMEWORK
3.0 BEACHED BIRD MODELING MECHANICS
4.0 CRITICAL RESPONSE ACTIVITY AND POST-HOC STUDIES
    4.1 SEARCH PATTERN
    4.2 VECTOR OF CARCASS COLLECTIONS
    4.3 PHYSICAL REMOVAL
    4.4 SEARCH EFFICIENCY
    4.5 BACKGROUND DEPOSITION
    4.6 SINKING
5.0 ESTIMATING MORTALITY USING THE BBM
    5.1 STEPWISE PARALLEL APPROACH TO BBM
    5.2 CRITICAL BBM ASSUMPTIONS AND DATA THAT CAN BE USED TO
        EVALUATE THEM
6.0 BBM SENSITIVITY EXPERIMENTS AND POTENTIAL REFINEMENTS
    6.1 EXPERIMENTS AND APPROACHES
7.0 BBM SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
    7.1 SWEPT THROUGH OR BBM MORTALITY ESTIMATION
    7.2 EMERGENCY RESPONSE STAFFING
    7.3 MANAGING SEARCH EFFORT
    7.4 GATHERING INPUT DATA SETS
    7.5 GUIDANCE ON BBM SET-UP AND IMPLEMENTATION
8.0 WORKS CITED
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: ALTERNATIVE BBM MODELS
APPENDIX B: DETAILED EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
APPENDIX C: QUICK REFERENCE AID TO BEACHED BIRD MODELING

Describes three purposes: a) The first is to provide NRD practitioners with an overview of methods commonly used to asses acute avian mortality following oil spills; b) The second is to provide NRD practitioners with an understanding of the BBM, the data required to support BBM modeling, uncertainties associated with BBM results, and steps that can be taken to reduce those uncertainties; and c) The third is to help Trustee and responsible party representatives cooperatively identify optimal strategies throughout the BBM process.