Aerial Photographs of Heard Island Seal Colonies from 1987

1987 aerial photographs of Heard Island, taken during the 1987/88 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE). The collection includes two rolls of 70mm film capturing seal harems and coastal features from helicopter-mounted cameras. Data was gathered on October 18-19, 1987, with detailed flight logs for each exposure.

Use Cases

• Census seal populations by analyzing harem counts in photographs from Spit Island and Four Bays region.
• Map historical coastline features and flight paths using recorded bearings, heights, and subject locations.
• Verify ground-based wildlife counts from the same period by comparing with aerial imagery of North Spit and South Spit.
• Study archaeological site changes at Sealers Corner using imagery captured from 40 to 700 feet altitude.

Strengths

• Precise metadata for 303 exposures includes height, bearing, date, and subject.
• Imagery targets specific, otherwise inaccessible locations like Spit Island for wildlife census.
• Data collection was concurrent with ground counts, enabling validation.

Limitations

• Limited temporal coverage to only two days in October 1987.
• Sample size is constrained to two rolls of film from a single expedition.
• Image quality and resolution are unspecified and may be affected by 1980s film technology.

Provenance

Source

Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE), documented by Eric J. Woehler.

Collection Method

Aerial photography using a Linhoff camera mounted on a Hughes 500D helicopter.

Time Range

October 18-19, 1987

Freshness

Historical dataset from 1987; not updated.

Geography

Heard Island, specific sites including Spit Island, Four Bays region, Saddle Point, and Atlas Cove.