Gulf Watch Alaska Nearshore Component: Sea Otter Aerial Survey Data Katmai National Park and Preserve, 2008 - 2018 (ver 2.0, March 2020)

These data are part of the Gulf Watch Alaska (GWA) long term monitoring program, nearshore monitoring component. Specifically, these data describe sea otter (Enhydra lutris) aerial survey observations from the waters around Katmai National Park and Preserve from surveys conducted in 2008, 2012, 2015, and 2018. Sea otters are a keystone predator, well known for structuring the nearshore marine ecosystem through their consumption of invertebrate prey. The dataset consists of 3 comma-delimited files (CSV) exported from Microsoft Excel. The data consists of (1) Strip transect counts, (2) Intensive Search Unit (ISU) counts, and (3) Transect coordinates. For each aerial survey, a pilot flew an airplane at an altitude of 91 meters over pre-determined [...]