DUML vessel-based photo-id and biopsy surveys for proposed JAX USWTR site 2016-2025

The survey area straddles the continental shelf and Blake Plateau and includes neritic, shelf waters and pelagic, offshore waters. As part of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet Training and Testing (AFTT) Monitoring Program, shipboard and aerial line transect surveys were implemented in 2009 to estimate density and document distribution and seasonal residency of marine mammals and sea turtles in the proposed USWTR (see <a href=seamap.env.duke.edu/datasets/detail/582>"DUML vessel-based surveys for proposed JAX USWTR site 2009-2010"</a> dataset).

In January 2012, shipboard line-transect survey methods transitioned to biopsy and photo-identification sampling to address questions of residency and population structure in the area. Vessel survey effort was expended along the 200 m depth contour and occasionally around eddies and fronts generated by the Gulf Stream. We are focusing on residency and population structure with our shipboard surveys because we are: (1) obtaining adequate data with which to estimate density from aerial line transect sampling; (2) interested in addressing questions of residency in this area.

Sightings within this dataset are from shipboard photo-ID and biopsy surveys conducted from 2016-2025.