The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is partnering with HeroX to launch its newest crowdsourcing challenge, Better Call Trawl. The focus of the challenge is to better understand the effectiveness of current relocation trawling methods for protecting sea turtles during offshore dredging operations.

The competition invites data scientists and engineers, statisticians and other scientists to analyze BOEM’s data, evaluate the effectiveness of current sea turtle relocation trawling practices, and develop an analytical tool that can help improve protection efforts.

Challenge participants are tasked with developing an analytical tool that will leverage BOEM data such as sea turtle movement, behavior, catch data from trawling and additional oceanographic data to evaluate and improve sea turtle relocation trawling during the dredging process.

Participants must submit analytical tools, visualizations and dashboards using provided data to answer questions such as:

• How many sea turtles does relocation trawling remove that were at risk of dredge capture?
• How many sea turtles does relocation trawling remove that were not at risk of dredge capture?
• How does the relocation trawling efficacy (at-risk sea turtles/not-at-risk sea turtles captured) change over the period of dredging? Throughout the year? With differing weather conditions?
• What additional data could be collected to bolster your confidence in the conclusions?

Up to six winners may be selected to share the total prize amount of up to $40,000. The grand prize winner will be awarded $15,000.

More information on the challenge and eligibility requirements can be found at: www.HeroX.com/BetterCallTrawl.