Project Description

Photos of northern fur seal rookeries from the Pribilof Islands will be archived to make them available to a variety of stakeholders. Primary among these groups are researchers whose interest in fur seals has been stimulated by the current population decline. Also important are writers and the general public who take an interest in environmental issues and who can use information that demonstrates the population today as a fraction of what it has been historically.

Issues & Justification

Photographic documentation of northern fur seal rookeries has been a component of population monitoring on the Pribilof Islands since the late 1800's. Research has resulted in rookery photographs from the Pribilof Islands that have never been archived in a consistent accessible electronic data base. These photographic resources are valuable to many researchers and historians but are currently relatively inaccessible owing to incomplete archival. In view of the declining trend in the northern fur seal population decline on the Pribilof Islands, it is important that such resources be readily available.

Goals

• Archive the northern fur seal rookery photos from the Pribilof Islands, filing them in secure files, and entering the relevant information into an electronic data base.

Methods

Field notes and filed records will be combined with the collection of photos of fur seal rookeries on the Pribilof Islands at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory to organize, file, and archive these resources, including the construction of an electronic data base as records for these photos.