A less restricted, more free-flowing conversation interview format 

 was used with great success. More emphasis was placed on past 

 observations and less on personal, job-related questions. There are 

 \/ery few species of marine mammals in the Cook Inlet. Therefore, 

 questions did not need to cover as wide a range as at Santa Barbara 

 Channel. As at Santa Barbara Channel, almost as soon as the project 

 was explained, information on marine mammals was provided. 



During the interviews, the instructional poster was displayed 

 (Figure 7). Because of the few species in the Cook Inlet area all 

 species of expected marine mammals were shown on one poster. The 

 poster was placed in a prominent place on each platform and at the 

 heliport offices. 



The sighting card had been revised and simplified (Figure 8). The 

 revised card had questions on only one side, and a postage paid return 

 address on the other side. All of the personal questions were removed; 

 only questions dealing strictly with sightings remained. A space was 

 left for additional comments. 



Five sighting cards were bound into a booklet, with a cover sheet 

 explaining the project. This way, each person interviewed could have 

 their own supply of sighting cards. The cards took less time to fill 

 out and it was easier to collect them by mail than by a company 

 representative. 



The helicopter pilots interviewed worked either for ERA 

 helicopters, or Kenai Air Alaska, and all were very helpful. Industry 

 personnel were associated with the platforms listed in Appendix B. 



Results 



Pilot Study 



The pilot study analyzed data from workers on four platforms. On 

 Shell's platform Beta, only the sighting cards were used, because the 

 platform management did not want the work to be disturbed by conducting 

 interviews. Thirty interviews were analyzed in the pilot study: 1 

 from a crew boat skipper at Holly, 12 from workers on platform Hondo, 

 and 17 from platform Emmy. Ten sighting cards were returned during the 

 pilot study, seven from platform Emmy and three from platform Beta. 

 The collected data were not sufficient for valid statistical analysis. 

 However, the interviews did show that oil platform workers do see 

 cetaceans and pinnipeds from the platforms. 



C-14 



