HRI Lecture Series - "Overview of the Texas Restoration Office and Restoration Along the Texas Coast "

"Overview of the Texas Restoration Office and restoration along the Texas Coast"

ADRIANA LEIVA, M.S.
COASTAL PROGRAM BIOLOGIST
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE - TEXAS RESTORATION OFFICE

The Coastal Program is one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s most effective resources for restoring and protecting fish and wildlife habitat on public and privately-owned lands. Our ability to work on public and private lands and with a diversity of partners is necessary for implementing a coastal habitat conservation strategy, especially in coastal watersheds where land ownership is often a mosaic of private and public entities. This ability also creates a unique opportunity for the Service to deliver landscape conservation, maintain habitat connectivity and continuity, and to connect and engage partners with the Service’s conservation priorities and objectives. The Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program provides free technical and financial assistance to landowners, managers, tribes, corporations, schools and nonprofits interested in improving wildlife habitat on their land. Projects take place on working landscapes such as forests, farms and ranches. In Texas, both the Coastal Program and the Partners Program are housed under one office, the Texas Restoration Office. This talk will highlight a few partnerships and different techniques used to restore or enhance habitat that benefit federal trust species including threatened and endangered species, migratory birds, and interjurisdictional fish.

Adriana Leiva has been working along the Texas coast for almost 20 years. While she was obtaining her undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Adriana was working offshore on chemosynthetic communities in the Gulf of Mexico where she got to dive down to 2208 meters in the Alvin. Subsequently she began working in a phylogenetic systematic lab that focused on gobies and assisted several doctoral students collect data for their projects around Mexico and Micronesia. After she graduated with a Biology degree she then moved on to work as a fisheries biologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department first as a technician in the Upper Laguna Madre monitoring the fish population. At the same time, Adriana was working on a fisheries and mariculture master’s degree. She then moved to the Ecosystem Resources Program and was part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Team as well as the Kills and Spills Team where they investigated fish and wildlife kill events. Adriana is also certified as a scientific diver and has assisted the Artificial Reef team monitor their rigs to reef program as well as several oyster restoration projects along the Texas bays.

Adriana is a Coastal Program biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Texas Restoration Office where she continues to support projects developed under the BP settlement for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. She provides technical assistance to support partners along the coast and loves brainstorming and talking about potential projects.