This dataset contains data used in the manuscript "Historic and contemporary use of catfish aquaculture by piscivorous birds in the Mississippi Delta", published in The Condor: Ornithological Applications. All data were collected in northwest Mississippi during winters (October - April) of 2000-2001, 2003-2004, 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018. Two primary types of data are present: 1) roost surveys, and 2) aquaculture cluster surveys. Roost surveys were aerial surveys in which all known double-crested cormorant night roosts in northwest Mississippi were surveyed and cormorants were counted. Roost survey data can be found in the “Cormorant_Roost_Survey_Counts.xlxs” file. For the aquaculture cluster surveys, clusters were defined as U.S. Geological Survey land survey sections that contained aquaculture. For each year of data, a random subset of these clusters were chosen to be aerial surveyed and double-crested cormorants, great blue herons, and great egrets were recorded per cluster. Basic descriptive statistics of the clusters can be found in the “Cluster_Descriptive_Stats.xlxs” file. The “Historic_vs_Contemporary_Cormorants.xlxs” file was used to compare cormorant density on aquaculture clusters between the historic period (2000-2001, 2003-2004) and contemporary period (2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018). Lastly, the “Cluster_Survey_Data_Contemporary.xlxs” file contains data recorded during the contemporary period only, and other variables regarding the clusters are also present.

Metadata for each file can be found in the "Metadata" tab of each spread sheet.