NEFSC 1995 AJ9501 (Part II)

NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC)

The ship survey was conducted from 06 August 1995 to 05 September 1995, beginning and ending in Woods Hole, MA. The study area covered approximately 12,600 nmi2 , and included the area bounded by Portland, ME to St. John, New
Brunswick, to the southern tip of Nova Scotia.

This cruise was part of a large scale marine mammal sighting survey which consisted of two legs (each approximately a month long) on each of two ships, and a six week aerial survey which was conducted concurrently with vessel operations. The entire study area was from Chesapeake Bay, VA, USA to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada.

The objectives of this survey were to:
1) Estimate the abundance of harbor porpoises in the Gulf of Maine - Bay of Fundy - Scotian shelf area using two different field collection and analysis methods.
2) Determine the spatial distribution and estimate the abundance of other cetaceans found in the above area.
3) Conduct a comparison between sighting rates and spatial distribution of harbor porpoises as seen by two different types of sighting platforms, a ship (the R/V ABEL-J) and an aircraft.
4) Determine spatial distribution patterns of harbor porpoises, and investigate if the patterns are correlated with hydrographic or biological features, such as, water depth, temperature or salinity.
5) Determine if harbor porpoises avoid this ship, and if so, at what distance.
6) Compare the abundance estimate and spatial distribution of harbor porpoises as seen this year with that seen in previous years.

In addition to the sighting data, effort data was recorded every half hour or whenever conditions change.
This dataset, therefore, should be used with the effort data.

Part I was conducted during July 9 - August 2, 1995.

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
dataset	Dataset ID
lineno	Line number
cruise	Cruise ID
date	Date of the observation
time	Time of the observation (local time)
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
species	Species name
common	Common name
tsn	ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
scientific	Scientific name
group_	Group size
rank	Taxonomic rank
herdsize	Group size
transect	Transect No
leg	Leg No
excluded	For internal use
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)