Thermal Habitat Preferences of Pacific Halibut and the Potential Influences of Hydrographic Variability on a Local Coastal Fishery, Summers 2003-2004, Loher, T.

These data are associated with the work described in NPRB Final Report R0314 (http://doc.nprb.org/web/03_prjs/r0314_final.pdf) and
in Loher, 2008 (Deep Sea Research II, 55(16-17):1801-1808).
During the summers of 2003 (June 12 through September 12) and 2004 (June 2 through September 26), two varieties of temperarature recorders were deployed at
St. Paul Island, Alaska, from a total of 13 local commercial longline vessels during normal fishing operations, generally conducted within five nautical miles
of the Island's coastline. During 2003, TSKA WaDaR temperature recorders (TSKA, North Bend, Washington, USA) were deployed from six vessels; loggers were
programmed to record temperature at 5 minute intervals, temperature-dependent resolutions ranging from 0.0011 C to 0.0014 C at minimum and maximum temperature,
respectively, and better than + 0.05 C. Vemco Minilog temperature-depth recorders (Vemco, Shad Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada) were deployed from twelve vessels
in 2003 and 2004; loggers were programmed to record temperature and depth at either four or five minute intervals with temperature at 0.1 C resolution and
0.2 C accuracy, and pressures equivalent to 0-800 m of seawater at 3.6 m resolution and 15 m accuracy. Raw data were output as comma-delimited text files with
temperature-depth readings referenced to date and time. The deployments provide data from 266 longline sets in 2003 and 351 sets in 2004. 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.