Photography from helicopter (or plane) taken for the purposes of resource monitoring, specifically seabird colony status and distribution.

The USFWS has conducted aerial surveys to photograph surface-nesting seabird colonies annually within the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex (OCNWRC) since 1988 - 2009. These surveys were conducted by helicopter over two – three days in early- to mid- June, coincident with late incubation/early hatching of common murres. During each survey, photographs were taken at an oblique angle and at 260-330 m flying altitude by two photographers using 35 mm cameras and 100-400 mm lenses. More than 63,000 images from these surveys of Oregon and Washington seabird colonies were available only in 35 mm film slide format. The inevitable degradation of these slides, some of which are now nearly 40 years old, made conversion to a stable digital format critical in order to prevent loss of data.

A geospatial representation was created from the colony coordinates, to place a metadata record into a spatial context. The shapefile only includes photographs for the Oregon Coast NWRC. This is 63,346 images.