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Persistent organic pollutants in sea otter blood and in blue mussels from the Aleutian Islands and southeast Alaska

Metadata Updated: November 13, 2025

Two data sets concerning organic contaminants are included here to aid in assessment of the sea otter population collapse in southwest Alaska. One data set consists of levels of organic pollutant compounds found in wild sea otter blood collected from captured animals in 1997 (Jessup et al., 2010). These sea otters were captured from islands in the western Aleutians and from outside the area of population collapse, in southeast Alaska near Cross Sound. Another data set consists of levels of organic pollutant compounds found in blue mussels collected from multiple sites along the Aleutian archipelago and from the Cross Sound area in southeast Alaska in 1994-1996 (Reese et al., 2012). These data support the following publication: M. Tim Tinker, James L. Bodkin, Lizabeth Bowen, Brenda Ballachey, Gena Bentall, Alexander Burdin, Heather Coletti, George Esslinger, Brian B. Hatfield, Michael C. Kenner, Kimberly Kloecker, Brenda Konar, A. Keith Miles, Daniel H. Monson, Michael J. Murray, Ben Weitzman and James A. Estes, 2021, Sea otter population collapse in southwest Alaska: assessing ecological covariates, consequences, and causal factors: Ecological Monographs References: Jessup, D. A., C. K. Johnson, J. Estes, D. Carlson-Bremer, W. M. Jarman, S. Reese, E. Dodd, M. T. Tinker, and M. H. Ziccardi. 2010. Persistent organic pollutants in the blood of free-ranging sea otters (Enhydra Lutris Ssp.) in Alaska and California. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 46:1214-1233. Reese, S. L., J. A. Estes, and W. M. Jarman. 2012. Organochlorine contaminants in coastal marine ecosystems of southern Alaska: inferences from spatial patterns in blue mussels (Mytilus trossulus). Chemosphere 88:873-880.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 13, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-605e6784d34ec5fa65ee7b64
Data Last Modified 2021-04-06T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 68c65d20-2839-4c44-b350-6e46674eb582
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial 172.7702, 51.417880, -135.98668, 58.778160
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 36ad811eacef5b94e2f847847b2927f1fe10b356e13e7ca9ba69d3753b812c0f
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": 172.7702, 51.417880, 172.7702, 58.778160, -135.98668, 58.778160, -135.98668, 51.417880, 172.7702, 51.417880}

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