Long-term monitoring of marine mammals and people at West Beach, Hopkins Marine Station

From September 2003 - October 2019, John Pearse (University of California, Santa Cruz, Emeritus Professor) counted the number of harbor seals he observed on Hopkins Marine Station's West Beach. Count presented includes the number of counted harbor seals hauled out on West beach, on the rocks and swimming in the water combined. The original handwritten data provides the numbered counted at each of these locations. John Pearse counts are collected using Nikon (8x24) binoculars. Initially the counts were made from the window of the Pearse residence positioned directly across the street from the beach which meant some of the beach was not visible. On July 27, 2008 John walked across the street to the fence along the recreational trail where the entire beach can be viewed. He did this sporadically until August 13, 2008 after which all the counts were made from the fence where the whole beach could be seen. Time is presented on the 24-hour clock. Time of day for the count is haphazardly chosen.

All data from 2003-2019 is from the notebooks of John Pearse. There is additional data in the physical notebooks on tide level, etc. not entered into the CSV. There is a one year gap in data from 24-Oct-2019 to 22-Oct-2020. Observations from 23-Oct-2020 onward were collected by Thom Akeman. Tide level, air temp, wind from National Weather Service readings at the airport. Vicki Pearse transcribed all of the data from John's notebooks.