Pelagic Seabird surveys in the Bering Sea, 1983 to 2004, Hunt et al.

This dataset consists of ship-based pelagic seabird (and marine mammal) surveys collected for various purposes by George L. Hunt, Jr. and co-workers. Surveys
in this data-set cover the years 1983 to 2004 and range from the northern Bering Sea (St. Matthews and St. Lawrence Islands) to the Pribilofs, inner shelf and Aleutian
Archipelago. Seabirds (sitting and flying) and marine mammals were continously recorded in a 300 m transect to one side of the vessel. Surveys do not represent a random
sample but were designed to study specific features or processes. Start and end-positions (sometimes more) were manually entered for each transect. Data-entry software
added timestamps to each record. Positions for each observation were later interpolated from the timestamps. To calculate densities (seabirds per square km), surveys were
binned into 3 km (or shorter) section. The data is presented in form of two tables (comma-separated text files) formated for direct import into the North Pacific Pelagic
Seabird Database (NPPSD), maintained by USGS, Alaska Science Center. One table contains the positions and other data for each bin, the other table the sum of each species
encountered, separated by flying and swimming. These datasets were archived as part of the North Pacific Research Board legacy project recovery effort undertaken by Axiom Data Science and NPRB in 2025. The goal of the recovery effort was to assess the NPRB-funded data projects from 2002 to 2014 and archive final data packages that were ready for publication to increase long-term accessibility and discoverability. Data packages were archived as is given limited funding and resources.