The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group has released their Louisiana Marine Mammal Restoration Strategy (PDF, 56 pages) to assist in future Deepwater Horizon restoration planning efforts. The strategy lays out a comprehensive, partnership-driven, adaptive framework to address injuries to marine mammals in Louisiana’s coastal and offshore waters, especially bottlenose dolphins, caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group is requesting public input on how the potential restoration actions and approaches detailed in the strategy should inform future Deepwater Horizon restoration planning efforts.
The main goal is to provide a suite of ideas and programmatic approaches to support sustainable, long-term restoration of dolphins. It recommends a coordinated, statewide restoration portfolio capable of addressing persistent threats, such as fisheries interactions and disease.
The Water Institute, in consultation with the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group, developed the strategy to identify relevant restoration approaches from the Trustees’ 2016 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Programmatic Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. It identifies how to strategically apply these approaches in Louisiana, detailing both short- and long-term funding priorities.
Successfully implementing this portfolio depends on building capacity and a long-term collaborative network to create a community of care for Louisiana’s marine mammal populations. Therefore, the strategy identifies key partnership opportunities, potential restoration actions and projects, engagement needs and opportunities, short- and long-term approaches, and their connection to other relevant marine mammal restoration and Monitoring and Adaptive Management (MAM) activities by groups with a geographic interest in Louisiana.
Potential priority actions identified and evaluated include:
- Decrease entanglement in shrimp otter trawl gear
- Decrease interactions with skimmer trawl gear
- Decrease mortality and serious injury in menhaden fishery
- Decrease interactions with hook and line fisheries
- Decrease feeding associated with fish cleaning stations
- Decrease incidence of intentional harm to dolphins associated with commercial and recreational fishing
- Enhance response and data collection from live and dead stranded marine mammals
- Develop strategies that mitigate disease and environmental related threats
Similar to the Regionwide Trustee Implementation Group’s Strategic Framework for Marine Mammal Restoration Activities, the Louisiana Marine Mammal Restoration Strategy is a non-decisional document, which means that while it describes potential priority actions, it does not select projects for implementation. Decisions on project selection and funding will be made during an upcoming restoration planning process, which is open for public input via the email address below.
The public is encouraged to provide feedback on implementation of the strategy by submitting comments to LATIG@LA.gov before August 7, 2026. The Trustees will use the strategy and public feedback to develop restoration alternatives in the upcoming Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment #9 (RP/EA #9).
In addition to seeking input on the Louisiana Marine Mammal Restoration Strategy implementation for consideration in RP/EA #9, the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group is soliciting project ideas for other restoration types for that restoration planning effort. More information about how to submit project ideas for the Nutrient Reduction (Nonpoint Source), Birds, and Wetlands, Coastal, and Nearshore Habitat restoration types for potential inclusion in RP/EA #9 can be found here.
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