HLY-06-01 Observations of Marine Mammals of Beringia. Version 1.0

This dataset contains marine mammal observations onboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy during the 2006 0601 cruise. The objective of this project has been to observe marine mammals in the context of their sea-ice "seascape" habitat. Emphasis has been placed on the winter-spring period during which Pacific walruses and ribbon seals use sea ice for reproduction, molting, rest, and as a platform for feeding and migration. The thesis is that marine mammals partition sea-ice habitat according to their life-history requirements: for Pacific walruses, "broken pack" and for ribbon seals "loose pack" provide this habitat. The observations in this dataset were not conducted during a Bering Sea Ecosystem Study-Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (BEST-BSIERP) cruise, but are included here with the other observations during the BEST cruises for the continuous story. BEST-BSIERP together are the Bering Sea project. The data files are in Excel, csv and jpg format.