MMS Marine Mammal Survey, PNW 1989-1990

Minerals Management Service

This dataset is from the Oregon and Washington marine mammal and seabird surveys studies: Oregon/Washington aerial [mammal observations] study code: OM, Contract number: 14-12-0001-30426,
Principal investigators: G. A. Green, Ebasco Environmental, Bellevue, Washington, M. L. Bonnell and K. T. Briggs, Ecological Consulting, Inc., Portland, Oregon.

Time period: April 1989 through October 1990
Study area: Pacific Ocean waters of Oregon and Washington from the coast to approximately 60 nautical miles offshore.

Methodology: Aerial surveys were conducted along 32 pre-established transects designed to systematically sample marine mammal and seabird abundance in all waters of the study area. Coastal surveys and one shelf break survey were also conducted. Standard transects provided systematic coverage of shelf, slope, and offshore waters in the study area. Sightings of seabirds, pinnipeds, cetaceans, and turtles were recorded. Seabird sightings were recorded only on the shaded side of the aircraft within a strip transect of 50 m width. Marine mammal and turtle sightings were recorded within an unbounded corridor. Declination angle was measured and noted for each marine mammal/turtle sightings and later used to calculate a probability density function of frequency with right-angle sighting distance. Navigation was by Loran and VLF-Omega. One ship survey was also conducted from aboard the NOAA ship Miller Freeman during August 1989.

Databases produced: 1) sightings of seabirds and marine mammals on 12 aerial surveys and one ship cruise, and 2) sightings of cetaceans on 12 aerial surveys and one ship cruise.

Objectives of the study were to review and analyze all available literature and databases concerning marine mammal and seabird diversity, distribution, and abundance in the Oregon-Washington coastal and offshore areas, to conduct field surveys over a 18-month period, and to prepare reports summarizing the findings.

[2015-03-24] A few records had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with an blank representing species presence only.

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
id	ID
study	Study code
platform	Platform code
on_	On (Y) or off (N) effort
effdate	effort date
date_0	Date in original format
date	Date of the observation
time_0	Time in original format
time	Time of the observation
species	Species name
species_code	Species code
number	Group size
lat	Latitude in decimal degrees
lon	Longitude in decimal degrees
width	Width of the transect
newborns	Number of calves
males	Number of males
females	Number of females
age	Age
sex	Sex
plumage	Plumage
assoc	Association
direction	Direction
group_	Group size
behavior	Behavior code
altitude	Altitude in feet
decline	Decline
distance	Distance
perpdist	definition not provided
reldir	definition not provided
distcode	definition not provided
comment	Comments
weather	Weather code
clouds	Cloud code
wind	Wind
seastatus	Sea status
glaredir	Glare direction
glare	Glare
seatemp	Sea temperature (-99: not available)
record	Record No.
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)