The 5 year cesu budget request is built around the goals of: (1) estimating the loss of black abalone in numbers and also as a percent of the extant population in 2020 that was lost as a result of the…

This five-year cooperative agreement totaling $155,001 from the Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Unallied Management Projects federal grant program (CFDA 11.454) will support estimating the loss of black abalone populations and conducting ongoing assessments of the current population size, structure, and distribution along the Big Sur coastline in California through 2026. In year one, the University of California Santa Cruz will utilize existing data sets and drone/aerial imagery to quantify the number and percentage of black abalone lost in the 2020/21 wildfires and flooding. Years two through five will provide updated assessments of the black abalone population to inform conservation and management efforts.

The 5 year cesu budget request is built around the goals of: (1) estimating the loss of black abalone in numbers and also as a percent of the extant population in 2020 that was lost as a result of the fire/flood sequence that occurred in 2020/21 (year 1) and, (2) providing an up to date assessment of the current population size, size structure and geographic distribution of black abalone (years 2-5). Year 1: estimating the loss of black abalone in numbers and also as a percent of the extant population in 2020, that was lost as a result of the fire/flood sequence that occurred in 2020/21. This task will utilize data collected this year by the raimondi lab. These data sets include estimates of population size prior to the fire/rain event of 2020/21, previous habitat surveys, and drone based imagery both pre and post flood. We will also integrate USGS coastal flight-based imagery to create spatially explicit maps of habitat pre-flood and habitat post-flood for the big SUR coastline. We W