Whale Distribution and Abundance in the Southeast Beaufort Sea, July 1992

Aerial survey data from July 1992 documents whale distribution and abundance in the Mackenzie estuary, southeast Beaufort Sea, and west Amundsen Gulf. The dataset, reported by Harwood and Norton (1996), contains digital files of transects flown during the survey. It provides a snapshot of whale populations in these Canadian Arctic waters during late summer.

Use Cases

• Analyze whale abundance patterns across the Mackenzie estuary, southeast Beaufort Sea, and west Amundsen Gulf using transect data.
• Study the spatial distribution of whales in late July 1992 relative to the surveyed transects.
• Use the aerial survey data as a baseline for comparing historical whale populations in the Canadian Arctic.

Strengths

• Data originates from a peer-reviewed Canadian Data Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (No. 964), providing authoritative documentation.
• Covers a specific and defined late-summer time period (July 1992) in the Canadian Arctic.
• Includes multiple file formats (ESRI REST, PDF, CSV) for flexible access and analysis.

Limitations

• Data is from a single month in 1992, offering only a historical snapshot without recent or longitudinal context.
• The dataset's size, row count, and specific column structure are unknown, limiting pre-download assessment of analytical scope.
• As an aerial survey, detection rates and abundance estimates may be influenced by weather conditions, observer bias, and species identification challenges.

Provenance

Source

Harwood, L.A. and P. Norton (1996). Aerial survey data from the southeast Beaufort Sea, Mackenzie River estuary and west Amundsen Gulf, July 1992. Canadian Data Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences No. 964.

Collection Method

Aerial survey transects.

Time Range

July 1992

Freshness

null

Geography

Mackenzie estuary, southeast Beaufort Sea, and west Amundsen Gulf, Canada.