Alaska Marine Animal Watch
Community Wildlife Interactions - Southeast Alaska

Stewardship Through Action

Southeast Alaska is one of the richest marine mammal corridors on Earth — humpback whales, orcas, Steller sea lions, harbor seals, Dall's porpoises, and sea otters move through these waters every day. But there's no coordinated, community-based effort to document what's happening out there. Lots of eyes on the water, but no way to share what they see.

Alaska Marine Animal Watch changes that. Every sighting shared adds to an open record that builds a real picture of wildlife in the region. And the data belongs to everyone: researchers, students, educators, tribal resource managers, journalists, and curious people.

You don't need to be a scientist or even have an account! You just need to be on the water.

Alaska's Marine Mammal Regulations

Federal and state regulations set minimum approach distances to protect marine mammals from vessel disturbance:

Many boaters — particularly visitors — don't know these rules exist. Alaska Marine Animal Watch data helps identify where violations are most common, giving agencies and educators the evidence they need to focus their efforts.

Open Data, No Gatekeeping

Every sighting on Alaska Marine Animal Watch is publicly visible and free to download. The CWI record includes species, count, behavior, location, and date. Researchers, students, agencies, and journalists can use it without fees, agreements, or approval. We built it for the community — if the data is useful to you, take it and use it! That's what it's for.

What Is Alaska Marine Animal Watch?

Alaska Marine Animal Watch is a free, community-driven app for logging marine mammal sightings and reporting potential incidents across Southeast Alaska. By turning everyday encounters on the water into a living map, we help people watch and enjoy wildlife more responsibly. Built in Juneau, for the whole region.

How We Use AI

Alaska Marine Animal Watch is built with AI assistance. Our coding assistant is Vibe, made by Mistral AI — an independent AI company based in Paris, France.

What this means in practice: AI helps write and refine this platform's code, under human direction. It does not decide what we build, how we moderate, or what happens to your data. Every product, privacy, and community decision here is made by a person. Your sightings, photos, and reports are not used to train anyone's AI.

Questions about our use of AI? Ask us directly: hello@alaskamarineanimalwatch.com

Community Guidelines

Alaska Marine Animal Watch is a moderated community. Moderation doesn't mean censorship, but it's how the record stays worth trusting. Three rules cover most everything:

1. Be Polite on the Water, Be Polite Here

Guides, fishermen, researchers, and first-time visitors to Alaska all read this record. No harassment, no personal attacks, no ganging up. Disagree with a sighting report if you have better facts — never with the person. Violators will be removed from the community.

2. Describe the Behavior, Don't Accuse

Public accusations are a legal risk to the community. If you believe a marine mammal was disturbed, report it through the private concern pipeline, where trained reviewers handle it properly. Personal attacks will result in removal from the community.

3. Report, Don't Reply

If you see someone breaking these rules, use the report link on any sighting discussion — don't start an argument in the thread. A moderator reviews every report. When we remove something or someone, we tell the person why. Enforcement is the same for everyone.

Reports are confidential. Your information is never shared without your permission.

How We Operate

A For-Profit, Transparent Model

Alaska Marine Animal Watch is an independently operated, for-profit project. This means we run lean, we move fast, and we don't answer to a board.

Revenue from Alaska Marine Animal Watch — through partnerships, data services, and supporter contributions — funds the platform's operation and development. We don't sell your information and we don't restrict access based on finances.

We believe the best way to protect Southeast Alaska's marine ecosystem is to put real data in the hands of the people who can use it. The full CWI record — species, location, behavior, count, and date — is publicly downloadable from the map page. No fees and no gatekeeping.

How the Data Flows

When you submit a sighting, the report routes to a secure database. A public tab containing only species, location, behavior, date, and animal count feeds the sighting map in near real-time. Your name and contact information stay in a private tab that only Alaska Marine Animal Watch administrators can access.

Concern reports follow a separate, fully private pipeline — never published or displayed on the map. Reporter identity on all concern reports is always confidential.

Media Inquiries, Research Partnerships, and Data Requests: hello@alaskamarineanimalwatch.com

Patches

Earned the Field Station way — by adding what you saw to the record.

Supporter patches are always visually distinct — earned patches stay earned.

My Sightings

Your full record — every sighting, the discussion it sparked, and how it appears publicly. Tap any row for the deep view. Your three most recent are shown here; the app lists your whole history.