Cetacean, sea turtle, and seabird visual observations using line-transect survey methods from ships and aircraft during the Gulf of Mexico Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (GOMMAPPS) surveys from 2017 to 2020

As part of the Gulf of Mexico Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (GOMMAPPS), the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) conducted seasonal shipboard surveys of the U.S. oceanic waters of the Gulf of Mexico out to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and aerial surveys of U.S. continental shelf waters (up to the 200-m isobath) from 2017 to 2020. During all cetacean and sea turtle surveys and for the seabird data collected from the plane, a two-team independent visual observer approach with distance sampling was used to estimate the detection probabilities, abundance, and characterize spatial distribution of the species or groups of species. For seabird data collected from the ship, a single team using standard, transect-based methodology was utilized. This collection of datasets includes cetacean, sea turtle, and seabird visual observation data and effort points with surveying conditions that can be used in abundance and density modeling per visual line-transect survey protocols. These datasets may also include opportunistic data and photographs of cetaceans and other taxa such as manatees, billfish, sharks, sea rays, sunfish, and other marine fishes, sargassum, and algal blooms. Raw and processed files from conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) casts, and expendable bathythermographs (XBT), performed during ship surveys may also be available for some surveys. This collection (GOMMAPPS) includes a total of 6 SEFSC surveys, including 3 ship-based and 3 aerial surveys. FWS surveys onboard NOAA vessels of opportunity (14) and the (4) aerial surveys were combined and archived under 2 separate accession numbers. All data can be individually accessed through the Granule Search below.