Justification - Wanted Alive White Abalone Community Science Initiative

Project Title: Wanted Alive White Abalone Community Science Initiative

Program Office Sponsoring or Conducting this CSC Project: NOS/ONMS

Authority for this CSC Project: CCSA

Purpose of this CSC Project: With this project, NOAA works with the recreational dive community to increase search effort to find living white abalone in the northern Channel Islands region.

Type(s) of Information Collected and From Whom It Is Collected: Photo image of abalone and meta data such as location coordinates, depth, substrate, time/date are collected by volunteers in the dive community.

Use of the Information: NOAA uses this information to locate wild white abalone (or any abalone) within their historical range off southern California and the Channel Islands and to determine the effects of protection and recovery efforts.

Method(s) of Information Collection: This project collects information using habitat characterization surveys (paper), digital images, Google form online survey with link to upload image. Website URL: findinghal.org

Affected Public: Individuals and business or other for-profit organizations (i.e., the recreational dive community including divers, dive clubs, dive shops, and dive boats).

Estimated Average Annual Number of Participants: 75

Estimated Average Annual Number of Responses per Participant: 1.32

Estimated Average Minutes per Response: 124

Estimated Average Annual Burden Hours: 205

Estimated Total Annual Cost to Participants in this CSC Project: $0

Estimated Average Annual Costs to the Federal Government: $10,595

Estimated Average Annual Number of Federal Government Employees (FTEs): 0.04

Recruitment and Retention Methods for Voluntary Participants (SSA item 1): Staff and volunteers with Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and Aquarium of the Pacific offer presentations to dive clubs about the White Abalone Wanted Alive initiative within Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.

Gifts or Payments (SSA Item 9): Participants receive a "team abalone" hat for uploading their abalone sightings to the database.

Annual and Multi-Year Schedules (SSA Item 16): This is an ongoing program for recreational divers to contribute photos and metadata about the critically endangered white abalone in southern California and the Channel Islands.

Display OMB Control No. and Expiration Date (SSA Item 17): This information will be provided when individuals sign up to participate in this CSC project.

Statistical Methods: This CSC project will not employ statistical methods.

Approval for Pretesting: This CSC project will not require additional pretesting with more than nine members of the public.

Supplemental Documents: There is one supplemental document for this CSC project. It includes project promotional/recruitment information, helpful instructions and photos for species identification, screenshots for the data entry app on the project’s website, and other related information.

CERTIFICATION: I certify the following are true.

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The collection will not include highly influential scientific information, ,which is information NOAA or OMB determines: (i) could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year, or (ii) is novel, controversial, or precedent setting or has significant interagency interest.

5. The collection complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).

6. The collection will provide qualitative and quantitative data that help inform scientific research and monitoring, validate models or tools, support STEM learning, and enhance the quantity and quality of data collected to support NOAA’s mission.

Name: Julie Bursek