Browsing by Subject "Wildlife conservation"

Pinniped species undergo a life history, unique among marine mammals, that includes discrete periods of occupancy on land or ice within a predominantly marine existence. This makes many pinniped species valuable sentinels of marine ecosystem health and models of marine mammal physiology and behavior. Pinniped research has often progressed hand-in-hand with advances at the technological frontiers of wildlife biology, and drones represent a leap forward in the long-established field of aerial photography, heralding opportunities for data collection and integration at new scales of biological importance. The following chapters employ and evaluate recent and emerging methods of wildlife surveillance that are uniquely enabled and facilitated by drone methods, in applied research and management campaigns with near-polar pinniped species. These methods represent advancements in abundance estimation and distribution modeling of pinniped populations that are dynamically shifting amid climate change, fishing pressure, and recovery from historical depletion.Conventional methods of counting animals from aerial imagery—typically visual interpretation by human analysts—can be time-consuming and limits the practical use of this data type. Deep learning methods of computer vision can ease this burden when applied to drone imagery, but are not yet characterized for practical and generalized use. To this end, I used a common implementation of deep learning for object detection in imagery to train and test models on a variety of datasets describing breeding populations of gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) in the northwest Atlantic Ocean (Chapter 2). I compare standardized performance metrics of models trained and tested on different combinations of datasets, demonstrating that model performance varies depending on both training and testing data choices. We find that models require careful validation to estimate error rates, and that they can be effectively deployed to aid, but not replace, conventional human visual interpretation of novel datasets for gray seal detection, location, age-classification and abundance estimation. Spatial analysis and species distribution modeling can use fine-scale drone-derived data to describe local species–habitat relationships at the scale of individual animals. I applied structure-from-motion methods to a survey of three pinniped species, pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii), northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus), and Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), in adjacent non-breeding haul-outs to compare occupancy and habitat selection (Chapter 3). I describe and compare fitted occupancy models of pacific harbor seals and northern fur seals, finding that conspecific attraction is a key driver of habitat selection for each species, and that each species exhibits distinct topographic preferences. These findings illustrate both opportunities and limitations of spatial analysis at the scale of individual pinnipeds. Ease of deployment and rapid data collection make drones a powerful tool for monitoring populations of interest over time, while animal locations, revealed in high-resolution imagery, and contextual habitat products can reveal spatial relationships that persist beyond local contexts. I designed and carried out a campaign of drone surveillance over coastal habitats near Palmer Station, Antarctica, in the austral summer of 2020 to assess the seasonal abundance and habitat use of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) in the Palmer Archipelago and adjacent regions (Chapter 4). I modeled abundance as a function of date, with and without additional terms to capture variance by site, and used these models to estimate peak abundance near Palmer Station in the 2020 summer season. These findings leverage the spatial and temporal advantages of drone methods to estimate species phenology, distribution and abundance. Together, these chapters describe emerging applications of drone technology that can advance pinniped research and management into new scales of analytical efficiency and ecological interpretation. These studies describe methods that have been proven in concept, but not yet standardized for practical deployment, and their findings reveal new ecological insights, opportunities for methodological advancement, and current limitations of drone methods for the study of pinnipeds in high-latitude environments.

The Northern Andes stands as a bastion of unique and narrowly distributed global biodiversity. However, it has also experienced rapid transformation of habitats, posing a serious threat to species in the wild by shrinking their ranges. In this dissertation, I aim to deepen our comprehension of how species react to global changes, pinpointing areas where conservation efforts are lacking and highlighting urgent conservation priorities. Moreover, I demonstrate tangible conservation strategies designed to safeguard vulnerable species, while also prioritizing potential exploration regions to confirm the extent of their ranges.In the first chapter, I assess elevational retreats of nearly 200 range-restricted birds from their lower and upper elevational ranges (Medina et al. 2023). Using abundant crowd-sourced data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology database, eBird, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, I examine whether species shifted their elevational ranges over time by comparing observed versus expected occurrences below a low elevational threshold and above a high elevational threshold for two periods: before and after 2005. I also test for deforestation effects at lower elevations within each species’ distribution ranges. Species’ retreats from lower elevations are ubiquitous and involve a 23–40% decline in prevalence at the lowest elevations. Increases at higher elevations are not consistent. The retreats occur across a broad spectrum of species, from predominantly lowland to predominantly highland. Because deforestation show no relationship with species retreats, I contend that a warming climate is the most parsimonious explanation for such shifts. In the second chapter, I identify priority range-restricted bird species and their conservation hotspots in the Northern Andes (Medina et al. 2024). I employ updated maps of Area of Habitat (AOH), following a protocol I contributed along a set of experts from the Cornell Lab, Birdlife International, and American Bird Conservancy (Huang et al. 2021). In this protocol, I was tasked to build R and Python scripts capable to handle crowd-sourced data and batch-generate habitat maps for a thousand birds across the Americas. With the updated maps of species distribution, I estimate protection within each species’ AOH and for the cumulative distribution of birds. For the latter, I also calculate protection across the elevational gradient. I estimate how much additional protection community lands (Indigenous and Afro-Latin American lands) would contribute if they were conservation-focused. AOHs ranged from 8 to 141,000 km2. I identify four conservation priorities based on cumulative species richness. These priorities are high-resolution mapped representations of Endemic Bird Areas for the Tropical Andes that should be considered critically important. Protected areas cover only 31% of the cumulative AOH, but community lands could add 19% more protection. Sixty-two per cent of the 335 species have ranges smaller than their published estimates, yet IUCN designates only 23% of these as Threatened. Top 50 priority species concentrate in areas of low protection near community lands and at middle elevations where, on average, only 34% of the land is protected. I highlight the importance of collaborative efforts among stakeholders: governments should support private and community-based conservation practices to protect the region with the most range-restricted birds worldwide. Private reserves hold promise for the restoration of degraded landscapes and the protection of fragmented animal populations. In the third chapter, I advocate for the creation and implementation of private reserves as concluded in the previous chapter, drawing upon a case study from the Eastern Andes of Colombia to illustrate their potential. This study examines the rehabilitation efforts spanning four decades within Rogitama, aiming to assess their impact on mammal diversity and composition (Medina et al. 2021). Findings reveal the presence of 22 species, predominantly bats and rodents. These results mirror biodiversity levels akin to those observed in less disturbed areas of the Eastern Cordillera, indicating promising advances in ecosystem recovery within the reserve. I posit Rogitama, as a noteworthy case of successful plant rejuvenation, highlighting its significance in the broader context of biological conservation efforts. I firmly advocate for stakeholders to take heed of this case study as a blueprint for development in Northern Andean regions, where I have previously identified critical conservation gaps and priorities. In the last chapter, I identify species and areas that urgently need exploration to increase knowledge on distribution limits (Medina et al. in prep). I consider the AOH where there is less probability of finding a target species given its closeness to non-detection areas. These non-detection areas have checklists where a target species has yet to be reported. The proportion of species absent from an area over the species present will result in relatively uncertain areas. To define potential exploration sites, I mapped these areas along cumulative AOH for 281 species. I found priority exploration areas (high richness and high relative uncertainty) are relatively small compared to non-priority areas. Since 2000, human impact has penetrated 8% of priority areas and allowed 8% of the areas to be studied. Deforestation has progressively reduced, but some countries are still dealing with it. Protection along the priority regions is low. It is essential that governments devote more efforts to exploring biodiversity to better understand patterns in species distribution and thus develop accurate conservation and management plans.

Sea turtles are long lived marine species that are currently endangered because their life history and population dynamics hinder them from withstanding modern anthropogenic threats. Worldwide, fisheries bycatch in on the major threats to the survival of sea turtles and that is also the case in the Eastern Pacific. To establish regional conservation priorities for the mitigation of bycatch, it is essential to first obtain a comprehensive picture of the regional sea turtle bycatch situation. This comprehensive analysis was lacking for the Eastern Pacific; therefore one component of this dissertation (the first chapter) is focused on delivering a regional bycatch analysis for the Eastern Pacific. A literature review was conducted to obtain numbers of turtles captured, frequencies, bycatch and mortality rates per species and country in trawl, longline, and gillnet fisheries, and to compile results of mitigation measures. Moreover, estimates for current annual capture rates in trawl fisheries were obtained and compared with population numbers.

This regional bycatch used all the information compiled and synthesized to give conservation priorities at the regional level. The review underlines the high bycatch rates in trawls for Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador and the detrimental impact that these captures could have specially for hawksbill Eretmochelys imbricata due to its reduced population numbers and for green turtle Chelonia mydas due to its highest mortality rate. It also emphasizes the continuous lack of use of TEDs as a bycatch mitigation measure. In longline fisheries, the review identifies the high bycatch rates in pelagic longline fisheries of Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Nicaragua in a global context but given that olive ridley Lepidochelys olivacea is the most common species captured in these countries, it highlights the capture of loggerhead Caretta caretta and leatherback Dermochelys coriacea off Peru and Chile due to their small population numbers. Bottom longlines have high mortality rates compared with pelagic longlines in the region and the review identifies a need for further research in this area due to the scarce information but high mortality rates. The review also noted that some mitigation measures for pelagic longlines like circle hooks and hooks with appendages could bring improvements in the mitigation of bycatch in longline fisheries in the region, there is still considerable work to be done in technology transfer, sea turtle handling, and estimates of post-release mortality rates.

For gillnet fisheries, the most important highlight is how little information exists for the region given the high rates of bycatch for sea turtles in this gear. However, the difficulties of studying bycatch in highly dynamic and artisanal fisheries are recognized as the major impediment for this situation. Nevertheless, the high bycatch rates in areas where sea turtles congregate in high numbers like in foraging grounds for loggerhead in Baja California, Mexico and for greens in Paracas and Sechura, Peru, calls for either gear modifications (which has not been that successful), change of gear, or areas closed for gillnets.

The second half of the dissertation is focused on foraging ecology of oceanic sea turtles in the Southeast Pacific Ocean. Sea turtles in the oceanic stage are the least known stage due to the difficulty of accessing these individuals. However, it is a very important stage in the life cycle and can be critical for the population dynamics of sea turtles as some population models have shown. Therefore, this dissertation is filling a gap in the life cycle of sea turtle populations in the Eastern Pacific.

To study foraging ecology, we used Stable Isotope Analysis (SIA) of turtle tissues as well as potential prey items from the oceanic realm. SIA is a great tool because it gives an integrated view, from days to weeks, of prey from a consumer tissue. SIA also can be used to link consumers to habitats when elements that have spatial trends are used. In chapter two, we investigate the foraging ecology of three species of sea turtles to compare trophic status and to observe if spatial patterns were shown in the SIA signatures of sea turtles. To our knowledge this is the first study employing SIA to research the ecology of three species of sea turtles from the same time and space. Our results show that spatial patterns in delta15N and delta13C were observed in sea turtle's tissues as correlations with latitude. We also found that loggerhead's signatures differed significantly from green and olive ridleys, especially in terms of delta15N. Loggerheads had higher values of delta15N and also a wider nitrogen trophic niche. Greens and olive ridleys were similar in isotopic nitrogen values but they were significantly different in carbon. When analyzing a smaller group of animals captured in a more restricted area, nitrogen differences were not found which suggests that latitudinal spatial patterns play an important role in the nitrogen signature. On the contrary, carbon signatures still differed among turtles in the restricted area which suggest that the inshore-offshore trend is strong and made us conclude that loggerheads are restricted to oceanic areas but that greens and olive ridleys could be using both coastal and oceanic areas.

In chapter three, we conduct a mixing model analysis using the Bayesian program SIAR to identify the most important prey items for green, olive ridley, and loggerhead off Peru. Also, we wanted to identify the contribution of longline baits in the diet of oceanic turtles. The analysis was restricted to the central zone of our study area to avoid spatial trends in nitrogen. To use as sources in the model, we collected potential prey items offshore Peru during trips on longline fishing vessels and obtained their stable isotope signatures. Results from our mixing models show that for greens and olive ridleys, crustaceans, mollusks, and coastal Ulva (indicator of coastal prey) were the only important food items. In the case of greens, crustaceans had a very high proportional contribution and due to the fact that nitrogen values of crustaceans were the lowest ones among the sources it seems that greens would be eating in a lower trophic level. The importance of coastal Ulva for greens and olive ridleys is a confirmation of our findings from chapter two where we suggest that these two species could be using oceanic as well as coastal areas.

Results for loggerheads showed cnidarians, mollusks, mackerel and squid bait as foraging items and highlights the differences among this species and the other two. The lack of importance of coastal Ulva again suggests that loggerheads remain only in oceanic areas off Peru. Moreover, the importance of mackerel and squid, the most common longline baits, suggests this species is the one interacting the most with longline fisheries and that cumulative effect of multiple interactions could have a detrimental effect in this population.

This dissertation research explores participatory sea turtle conservation monitoring through a comparison of two case studies, one in North Carolina (NC), USA and the other in Baja California Sur (BCS), Mexico. Participatory approaches in conservation management can supplement state capacity as well as strengthen the involvement of citizens in environmental governance and knowledge production. Despite scholarship challenging the validity of the categories of developing and developed nations, this categorical assumptions derived from this binary world divide continue to inform conservation, and theoretical vocabularies for local roles in conservation management. In developed nations, participatory conservation management is framed through the broader administrative rationalism discourse, and is identified as volunteer conservation or citizen science. In developing nations, participatory conservation management is approached through the discourse of biodiversity and the threats human society poses to it, and is identified through community-based processes of conservation stewardship. The two case studies analyzed in this dissertation serve to interrogate the ways in which these distinct discourses influence outcomes, and consider what may be obscured or overlooked due to discursive constraints.

Conducting ethnographic research in each case study site, I participated in and observed sea turtle conservation activities and conducted in-depth interviews with relevant sea turtle conservation actors as well as collected documents pertaining to the conservation programs. Sea turtle conservation monitors in NC and BCS perform functionally similar conservation tasks, and I collected data using similar techniques in order to maximize comparability. I compare the case studies, not to generalize to a population, but instead to speak to theoretical propositions and inform existing theory on participatory conservation monitoring.

Although participatory monitoring in NC and BCS does not result in a democratization of science, there are beneficial outcomes to participants in both places. NC sea turtle monitors are enabled to take ownership of sea turtle stewardship, and BCS sea turtle monitors are enabled to promote conservation and cultural change using the authority of science. These outcomes challenge assumptions about state capacity and local engagements with science in participatory conservation, and the disparate approaches to local roles in conservation in each `world.' The overall findings suggest that a multitude of factors are involved in the production of conservation program frameworks and participant outcomes, and more deeply interrogating the taken for granted assumptions behind conservation designs and implementation can offer stronger understandings of what participatory conservation management can (and cannot) achieve.

The protection of global biodiversity and the conservation of the earth’s natural resources are paramount to future wellbeing of mankind. Humans are a hugely influential part of the global ecosystem, and the ways in which we use, create, and change global biodiversity patterns are as important to understand as the ways in which those patterns function without our interference. Of more specific importance is an understanding of the ways in which human values, behaviors and practices (especially those surrounding leadership, management, and finance) relating to biodiversity management can be helpful or harmful as we attempt to meet our self-determined goals of global conservation.

To that end, the first chapter of this dissertation focuses on the potential influence of leadership and management on outcomes in wildlife reintroduction programs. Wildlife reintroductions and translocations are statistically unlikely to succeed. Nevertheless, they remain a critical part of conservation because they are the only way to actively restore a species into a habitat from which it has been extirpated. Past efforts to improve these practices have attributed the low success rate to failures in the biological knowledge (e.g., ignorance of social behavior, poor release site selection), or to the inherent challenges of reinstating a species into an area where threats have already driven it to local extinction. Such research presumes that the only way to improve reintroduction outcomes is through improved biological knowledge. This emphasis on biological solutions may have caused researchers to overlook the potential influence of other factors on reintroduction outcomes. I employed a grounded theory approach to study the leadership and management of a successful reintroduction program (the Sea Eagle Recovery Project in Scotland, UK) and identify four critical managerial elements that I theorize may have contributed to the successful outcome of this 50-year reintroduction. These elements are:

(i) Leadership & Management: Small, dedicated team of accessible experts who provide strong political and scientific advocacy (“champions”) for the project.

(ii) Hierarchy & Autonomy: Hierarchical management structure that nevertheless permits high individual autonomy.

(iii) Goals & Evaluation: Formalized goal-setting and regular, critical evaluation of the project’s progress toward those goals.

(iv) Adaptive Public Relations: Adaptive outreach campaigns that are open, transparent, inclusive (esp. linguistically), and culturally relevant.

This study represents an initial, but valuable inquiry into the ways in which leadership and management can impact programmatic (and therefore, biodiversity) outcomes.

The second chapter of this dissertation explores the potential relationship between financial mechanisms and outcomes in non-governmental biodiversity conservation programs. Although local laws, trends, and markets forces often shape the specific laws and market conditions under which conservation transactions occur, focusing analysis on the broader mechanisms of transfer may provide new opportunities to identify patterns, improve efficiency, and link transfer mechanisms to conservation outcomes.

Through a series of seven brief, descriptive case studies built around interviews with senior officers at US non-governmental organizations, this chapter seeks to highlight potential linkages between inflows of conservation dollars, financial mechanisms used to transfer them to conservation actors/entities/organizations, and eventual outflows of conservation dollars into measurable outcomes. This chapter also presents a preliminary framework for categorizing mechanisms and predicting their impacts on availability and outflow of conservation dollars. Although the framework fails to predict all outcomes, its failure highlights several emergent themes in the impact of financial mechanism, including:

(i) longer time horizons of funding availability can decrease the value of conservation investments, but increase accountability

(ii) time-bound (or time-limited) funding mechanisms can create uncertainty and decrease investment in program outcomes

(iii) mechanisms granting greater control to donors/investors can decrease the autonomy and adaptability of conservation organizations, and can skew outcomes toward donor biases

We hope that these results are useful as a first step toward the greater consideration of financial mechanisms in conservation planning and financial analysis.

The third chapter of this dissertation applies principles of the first two chapters as part of an in-depth look at one conservation initiative: the Anne K. Taylor Fund’s Boma Fortification Program, taking place in Narok County, Kenya. In the pastoral steppe of East Africa, lions (Panthera leo) kill livestock. The subsequent lethal retaliation by livestock owners has helped reduce lion numbers by more than 80% and driven it from most of its historic range. This conflict is especially intense along the western edge of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, where some of the densest lion and livestock populations in Africa overlap.

We evaluated the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of implementation for one proposed solution – the Anne K. Taylor Fund’s subsidized construction of fortified, chain-link livestock fences (‘bomas’) – in reducing livestock loss to depredation. We collected 375 predation reports from 308 semi-structured household interviews and predation records. We used these data to study the impact of subsidised boma fortification on the depredation of cattle, sheep and goats. Of 179 fortified bomas, 67% suffered no losses over one year; of 60 unfortified bomas, only 15% had no losses over one year. Furthermore, losses of greater than five animals per year occurred at only 17% of fortified bomas, compared to 57% of unfortified bomas. The overall reduction in losses to predation at fortified bomas equated to savings of more than $1,200 USD per household per year, but with a return on investment of 778%, partially fortified bomas are vastly more cost effective than fully fortified bomas (return on investment = 349%).

However, the broad applicability of the boma fortification approach is uncertain, as its financial structure relies heavily on a single large donor to act as subsidizing entity. This single-supplier approach introduces cost inefficiencies, as well as supply chain vulnerabilities. Future fortification programs should consider alternative decentralized approaches to strengthen supply lines and scale the solution.

These chapters collectively represent a thorough examination of the human dimensions of conservation – and the ways in which leadership, management, finance, and valuation can contribute to harmful or helpful outcomes in the effort to preserve global biodiversity.

Few areas of the planet are untouched by human actions, be they marine or terrestrial. Marine habitats face disturbance from overexploitation of fisheries and pollution while terrestrial habitats face significant threat from land cover conversion and degradation. To address these threats, conservationists utilize a variety of population viability analyses to both assess and manage species’ health. The results of these analyses often play a key role in determining when intervention is necessary and which actions will be the most successful. Within this dissertation, I used several population modeling approaches to advance our understanding of changes in the landscape on the persistence of populations and by extension, species.

This dissertation may be broadly divided into two halves, the first assessing a single, local population and the second evaluating metapopulations. In Chapter 2, I combined telemetry data on sooty terns (Onychoprion fuscatus) with a long-term capture-mark-recapture dataset from the Dry Tortugas National Park to map the movements at sea for this species, calculate estimates of mortality, and investigate the impact of hurricanes on a migratory seabird. Included in the latter analysis is information on the locations of recovered bands from deceased individuals wrecked by tropical storms. I present the first known map of sooty tern migration in the Atlantic Ocean. The results indicate that the birds had minor overlaps with areas affected by the major 2010 oil spill and a major shrimp fishery. Indices of hurricane strength and occurrence are positively correlated with annual mortality and indices of numbers of wrecked birds. As climate change may lead to an increase in severity and frequency of major hurricanes, this may pose a long-term problem for this colony.

In the latter half of this dissertation, I utilized a variety of metapopulation analyses for conservation at multiple scales. As a landscape becomes increasingly fragmented through habitat loss, the individual patches become smaller and more isolated and thus less likely to sustain a local population. Metapopulation theory is appropriate for analyzing fragmented landscapes because it combines empirical landscapes features with species-specific information to produce direct information on population extinction risks. Combining a spatially explicit metapopulation model with empirical data on endemic species’ ranges and maps of habitat cover, I could calculate the metapopulation capacity— a measure of a landscape’s ability to sustain a metapopulation.

Mangroves provide an ideal, model landscape for my analysis in Chapter 3. Of conservation concern, one can easily delineate their patch boundaries. I calculated metapopulation capacity for 99 metapopulations from 32 different mangrove-endemic bird species globally in the years 2000 and 2015. Northern Australia and South East Asia have the highest richness of mangrove-endemic birds, with some hotspots also occurring in Guyana and French Guiana. The areas with the highest metapopulation loss are the Caribbean, the Pacific coast of Central America, Madagascar, Borneo, and isolated patches in Southeast Asia in Burma and Malaysia. Regions with the highest loss of habitat area are not necessarily those with the highest loss of metapopulation capacity. Often it is not a matter of how much, but how the habitat is lost since fragmentation of patches has a complicated relationship with extinction risk.

After analyzing the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on a species’ risk of extinction, it is natural to examine the reverse, the restoration of habitat. In Chapter 4, I used metapopulation models to prioritize locations for potential habitat corridors. I compared these results to standard connectivity models that have grown in popularity to illustrate how together they provide a more complete set of recommendations for the recovery of species. For this chapter, I use the golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) as the focal species. Endemic to the highly fragmented Atlantic coastal forest of Brazil, the golden lion tamarins are a highly studied species of top conservation concern. I identified the best locations for habitat restoration to increase metapopulation capacity and how they compare with movement of individuals in the current landscape. I also evaluated how a previous corridor restoration ranked according to these methods and how it effects future conservation planning. While large, occupied patches are significant for both sets of models, metapopulation models also indicate the importance of nearby, medium-sized empty patches that if connected by a corridor would facilitate the growth and recovery of tamarin populations.

In summary, I applied a suite of population modeling techniques to an assortment of landscapes and species for conserving biodiversity. Despite the variety of models used, I illustrate the flexibility and utility of population ecology to conservation management.

The ultimate goal of wildlife recovery is abundance growth of a species, though it must also involve the reestablishment of the species’ ecological role within ecosystems frequently modified by humans. Reestablishment and subsequent recovery may depend on the species’ degree of adaptive behavior as well as the duration of their functional absence and the extent of ecosystem alteration. In cases of long extirpations or extensive alteration, successful reestablishment may entail adjusting foraging behavior, targeting new prey species, and encountering unfamiliar predatory or competitive regimes. Recovering species must also increasingly tolerate heightened anthropogenic presence, particularly within densely inhabited coastal zones. In recent decades, gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) recovered from exploitation, depletion, and partial extirpation in the Northwest Atlantic. On Cape Cod, MA, USA, gray seals have reestablished growing breeding colonies and seasonally interact with migratory white sharks (Carcarodon carcharias). Though well-studied in portions of their range due to concerns over piscivorous impacts on valuable groundfish, there are broad knowledge gaps regarding their ecological role to US marine ecosystems. Furthermore, there are few studies that explicitly analyze gray seal behavior under direct risk of documented shark predation.

In this dissertation, I apply a behavioral and movement ecology approach to telemetry data to understand gray seal abundance and activity patterns along the coast of Cape Cod. This coastal focus complements extensive research documenting and describing offshore movement and foraging behavior and allows me to address questions about movement decisions and risk allocation. Using beach counts of seals visible in satellite imagery, I estimate the total regional abundance of gray seals using correction factors from haul out behavior and demonstrate a sizeable prey base of gray seals locally. Analyzing intra-annual space use patterns, I document small, concentrated home ranges utilizing nearshore habitats that rapidly expand with shifting activity budgets to target disperse offshore habitats following seasonal declines in white sharks. During the season of dense shark presence, seals conducted abbreviated nocturnal foraging trips structured temporally around divergent use of crepuscular periods. The timing of coastal behavior with different levels of twilight indicate risk allocation patterns with diel cycles of empirical white shark activity. The emergence of risk allocation to explain unique behavioral and spatial patterns observed in these gray seals points to the importance of the restored predator-prey dynamic in gray seal behavior along Cape Cod.